Squashed

It's harvest time and in case you didn't know, I have quite a history with pumpkins. So, in honor of pumpkin growers everywhere, here's Ellie Morgan, the tough talking teenager in my YA novel, Squashed, explaining her pumpkin obsession:

I grew giant pumpkins because I liked battle, and growing one was an everyday fight. You had to be in it for the long haul. Rain, frost, bugs, and fungus could strike at any time and stop you dead. Only certain growers are cut out to handle this pressure -- tough people of steel who can stand against the odds. Richard says giant-pumpkin growers are the spawning salmon of agriculture, since only the strongest make it upstream each year for anything worth mentioning.

Not all vegetables are this draining. Lettuce doesn't bring heartache. Turnips don't ask for your soul. Potatoes don't care where you are or even where they are. Tomatoes cuddle up to anyone who'll give them mulch and sunshine. But giants like Max need you every second. You can forget about a whiz-band social life.

My father, who looked like Abraham Lincoln and played him in the Abraham Lincoln community play every February, felt I didn't have dates because I spent too much time with vegetables. Dad had a theory on everything--God, world hunger, fast food, why I grew giant pumpkins.

"Don't you see, Ellie," he said, "they're big and round and full--"

I sucked in my stomach. "What's your point, Dad?"

He coughed and went into one of his speeches on how pumpkins symbolize my desire for life's fullness and reaching my full potential. "You should be nurturing yourself, Ellie, instead of this...vegetable. Spending night and day with a squash is not healthy...or fulfilling."

"It's fulfilling to me."

"I know it seems that way now, honey," he continued, bending his 6'6" frame over me.

"And it's fulfilling to Max. Look at him, Dad."

My father scowled at Max and stroked his beard. It's hard to cross Abraham Lincoln. Un-American.

"It is simply not appropriate to have a relationship with a pumpkin, Ellie. Shall we get you a pet of some kind...perhaps a dog, a gerbil--"

"I don't want a pet."

I wanted to say that I could use some paternal understanding once in a while. I swatted a fly instead. I wanted to say that he wasn't exactly burning up the dating field either and that maybe social problems ran in the family.

Old Abe gave up for the moment and stood stopped in the field. "I'm afraid your grandmother got you into this," he mumbled, walking away.

Actually, Cinderella got me into this. My grandmother, who I call Nana, had the money. I was five when she took me to see the movie, and I was impressed with the pumpkin's starring role. It was the pumpkin the fairly godmother changed first. Everybody thinks the ball gown came first. Wrong. Cinderella drags the pumpkin over, the fairy godmother says, "Salaga doola, menchika boola -- bibidi, bobbidi, boo!" Bang, you have your basic magic coach. She couldn't have done that with a zucchini. It would have looked like a bus. Cinderella needed a royal carriage, not exact change and a seat with gum all over it.

Now, over the years Dad has tried to point out the strength of other vegetables in literature, Jack and the Beanstalk, for example, but as I argued, the beanstalk got Jack in nothing but trouble. The Princess and the Pea is an insomniac's nightmare. I don't think the throne was worth it. Peter Rabbit nearly croaked in the cabbage patch, stumbled home with nausea, heartburn, plus diarrhea, and got grounded.

But a pumpkin -- now, there was a vegetable with promise.

"Fast-paced and engrossing entertainment that startles the reader with its underlying strength." Publishers Weekly

"This laugh-out loud story is a delight...Ellie proves herself an all-around winner. So is Max and so is this book." A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

"A funny, fast-paced book about an ordinary girl with an extraordinary ambition." The New York Times