When Stephen and his brother Derek were children, their mother and father read children's stories to them. Nothing unusual about that, except Derek and Rita were communists who supported the dream of a world where working people controlled their workplace and their government, and no boss or ruler stole the wealth that the people produced with their labor.

One of the books that the parents read (printed in China) was about a hedgehog who searches for food in the cold winter forest. When he finds two turnips, he shares one with another animal, who then shares it with another...and another until in the end the turnip comes back to the hedgehog,

Stephen related this childhood memory to me one evening at a conference. I asked him to dig up the old book and we would reproduce it. But his parents had given all their children's books away over the years,

So together, Stephen and I (editor) reconstructed the story, his son Rafael provided the illustrations and his wife Sara, the translation. And soon, The Cabbage That Came Back was in print and in the world.