Book-A-Day 28: Two Old Potatoes and Me

Two Old Potatoes and Me

Written by: John Coy

Illustrated by: Carolyn Fisher

Whew, I made it!  Twenty-eight days of reviewing books can wear a girl out!  But, it has been a great way to dive in and get to know our collection on a deeper level and share wonderful reads with our school community.  I hope others will enjoy all the books I've discussed as much I did.

The last book of the month, Two Old Potatoes and Me is a great one to wrap up the challenge.  On the surface, it is the story of a young girl and her father and the bond they share working in their garden.  But as you read, you find there is so much more to this story.  It's about growth and change in a myriad of ways.  When two old potatoes are found in a cupboard, the little girl is about to throw them out when her dad stops her declaring that he thinks they can use them to grow new potatoes.  So out to the garden they go to get the potatoes settled into the soft earth.  The story moves forward describing the process the father-daughter team take in getting the potatoes to grow strong month by month.  In the end, they are left with a bountiful harvest and a special moment together as they share in eating mashed potatoes.

This would be a perfect story to read aloud as students begin exploring living things and how to care for plants.  During the story it describes the process of caring for a garden from picking weeds, to adding compost, to waiting and watching.  After sharing the story, have students create a list of all the things they will need to do in order to care for our school garden.  What tips can they learn from this story?  There is also a note at the end that includes a recipe for mashed potatoes.  What fun it would be to grown potatoes in our Northside school garden and then make some mashed potatoes following this recipe.  Click here to watch a Reading Rainbow clip featuring this book that you may also want to check out.

John Coy, the author has numerous other books for children.  You can learn more about him here.  If you like to know more about the illustrator Carolyn Fisher you can click here.