JAMIE O'ROURKE AND THE BIG POTATO by Tomie DePaola

This blog was created for a course at TWU.


Bibliography
DePaola, Tomie. 1992. Jamie O'ROurke and the Big Potato. New York: G.P. Putnam Sons.
ISBN-0-399-22257-x

Summary
This book is about a man named Jamie O'Rourke who is the laziest man in Ireland. He has his wife do all the work farming the potatoes(praties). One day she hurts he back and Jamie thinks he will starve because his wife can't pick praties for the winter. He happens across a leprechaun one day and tries to get the leprechaun to give him his gold. The leprechaun talks Jamie O'Rourke into letting him give a pratie seed that will grow a pratie bug enough to last all winter. The pratie grows so big that Jamie can't get it out of the ground. The villagers come see the enormous pratie. They tell him that they will help him dig it up if he will tell them how he did it. Jamie O'Rourke tells them the story of the leprechaun. While getting the pratie out it rolls down the hill and gets stuck in the middle of the road. In order to get it out he tells the villagers to all take some. They had so much pratie that they did not want to see anymore by the end of winter. When Jamie O'Rourke announces that he is going to plant an eye from the huge potato for next winter the villagers tell him that they will make sure he and his wife will always have enough food if he doesn't plant it.

Analysis

This is a fun and interesting Irish folktale. DePaola did a great job at portraying Jamie O'Rourke as a lazy man and his wife as the hard worker of the family. This was done very quickly in the story but it was well remembered throughout the story. The language and the illustrations of the clothing that was worn really helped to show where the story was set. Without knowing anything about the Irish culture you learned by reading this story that potatoes are very important. It seems to be the food that they rely on most during the winter. You also learn from the story that you have to put forth a little effort to enjoy the "praties" during the winter. My only concern about the book is how Jamie O'Rourke didn't necessarily put forth a lot of effort, everyone around him did, yet he still got to enjoy the rewards of the hard work.

Review Excerpts:

School Library Journal review: "The text has traditional folklore conventions: exaggerated, yet flat characters; a tricky plot; and of course a happy ending."

Connections:
This book would be great to use in March around St. Patrick's Day. It would be a great way to learn a few things about the Irish culture. I would like to do a KWL chart on the Irish culture and use Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato as an introduction, or attention grabber, for the unit.