Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 [Hardcover]

Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 29, 2001 | Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

In 1845, a disaster struck Ireland. Overnight, a mysterious blight attacked the potato crops, turning the potatoes black and destroying the only real food of nearly six million people.
Over the next five years, the blight attacked again and again. These years are known today as the Great Irish Famine, a time when one million people died from starvation and disease and two million more fled their homeland.
Black Potatoes is the compelling story of men, women, and children who defied landlords and searched empty fields for scraps of harvested vegetables and edible weeds to eat, who walked several miles each day to hard-labor jobs for meager wages and to reach soup kitchens, and who committed crimes just to be sent to jail, where they were assured of a meal. It’s the story of children and adults who suffered from starvation, disease, and the loss of family and friends, as well as those who died. Illustrated with black and white engravings, it’s also the story of the heroes among the Irish people and how they held on to hope.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-When most American teens talk about hunger, it's that growling sensation before meals. Famine is beyond their ken, an abstraction made only marginally concrete by TV images of the Third World. In the Irish potato famine of 1845-50, it was Europeans starving to death, and the impact on Ireland (one million dead, two million fled) and on the U.S. was staggering (those immigrants came here). The chronology of the disaster unfolds in this gruelingly poignant text that draws heavily on news reports and first-person narratives. Bartoletti's title also incorporates period pen-and-ink sketches and poetry laying bare the fragility, injustice, and stratification of Irish peasant society that could not cope with agricultural tumult. People lived on potatoes-and only potatoes-while growing profitable exports for British landlords. When the crops mysteriously failed repeatedly over the next five years, the peasants simply starved to death while the social structure of the society nearly died along with the populace. Relief efforts were brutally incompetent where they existed at all, and only the Quakers emerge as heroes of mercy. The bibliography (also narrative) provides some of the most fascinating historical reading in the book. Overall, a useful addition to collections, for both personal and research uses.

Mary R. Hofmann, Rivera Middle School, Merced, CA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 6-12. Through the voices of the Irish people, Bartoletti tells the history of the Great Irish Famine of the late 1840s. Eyewitness accounts and memories combine with devastating facts: one million died from starvation and disease; two million emigrated; the famine could have been avoided; the legacy was a bitter resentment against the English, who owned most of Ireland. The year-by-year political history is occasionally heavy going; but, as she did in Growing Up in Coal Country (1996), a Booklist Editors' Choice, Bartoletti humanizes the big events by bringing the reader up close to the lives of ordinary people. There are heartbreaking accounts of evictions, of the Irish starving while food is exported to England, and of deaths in the coffin ships that took the desperate to North America. The text is broken up with many black-and-white drawings from newspapers of the time, and a long final essay includes information about books, primary sources, library collections, and Web sites that readers can turn to for school reports and for research into their own family histories. It's a wonder there are so few nonfiction books about this subject for young people. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; None edition (October 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618002715
• ISBN-13: 978-0618002719
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #241,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > Children's Books > History > Europe

More About the Author

Susan Campbell Bartoletti is the award-winning author of several books for young readers, including Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850, winner of the Robert F. Sibert Medal. She lives in Moscow, Pennsylvania. Annika Maria Nelson studied printmaking at the University of Vienna in Austria and at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She lives in Southern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A haunting history, July 12, 2002

By 

Francie (Richmond, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 (Hardcover)

The potato blight that struck Ireland in the mid 1800s produced a nation-wide famine, resulting in "one million dead and two million who fled" to other countries, predominately the US and Canada. Countless other Irishmen, with no food, money or homes, simply disappeared. Susan Campbell Bartoletti's "Black Potatoes" recreates the era year by year from haunting contemporary newspaper illustrations, government records and first hand survivor stories, told to their children and grandchildren.

Bartoletti provides a balanced account of the economic, political and social repercussions of the blight and the ensuing famine. Food was available but the poor did not have the means to acquire it. The British government was slow to react to the devastation. Irish government officials, landowners, and shopkeepers worked to protect their own interests but, finally, in the end, contributed the greatest amount of financial support to the poor. The Friends Church, operating local soup kitchens, and American relatives, sending millions of dollars in financial support, were allies of the Irish poor during these times.

This book is a wonderful historical recounting of the time and is compelling reading for those of all ages interested in their Irish heritage. Bartoletti brings the horrors of famine and poverty to life. The 150-year old drawings, originally published in the "Illustrated London News", will stay with the reader long after the book is finished. The six-page narrative bibliography is as interesting as the story itself, and provides students and researchers with numerous sources for further study.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary book, November 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 (Hardcover)

Susan Campbell Bartoletti, already well known for her award-winning fiction and nonfiction, has reached new heights with this book. It is clearly impeccably researched, yet never reads like a dry compilation of facts. It is by turns moving, horrifying, hopeful, and depressing. Although she points out the general indifference and (often) hostility of some government officials who could have provided some relief, she never falls into the easy trap of making anyone the villain of the terrible story of the Irish potato famine. Instead, she details the general ignorance of the cause of the blight and the sometimes well-meaning but misguided attempts of different people to remedy the situation.

Most importantly, the reader leaves feeling that this is not some strange thing that happened to unknown people a long time ago. The feeling of immediacy, and the way the reader is led to empathize with the sufferers, make it fresh and real.

Readers of "Nory Ryan's Song" who want to get the real history of this terrible time should be encouraged to read "Black Potatoes."

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Hungry History, March 10, 2006

By 

K. Sundin (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 (Hardcover)

An interesting and worthwhile history, made more palatable than a textbook by the extensive quotations of personal accounts and contemporary newspaper illustrations.

Broad in scope and adequate in depth, the book treats the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1850 with a sensitive, compassionate tone, spending great time on the human toll of the Famine, as well as the diseases it invited and the social upheaval it instigated.

Bartoletti vividly illustrates the dehumanizing and horrifying experience of the starving Irish, and explicitly eschews diplomacy to explore the economic and political causes. The book also explores both the (perceived or actual) maintenance and possible exacerbation of the crisis by the English government and the English landlords. Bartoletti concludes that the awkward and faltering relief was so unwillingly given because of staunchly protected laissez-faire economics as well as cultural biases and prejudice against the Irish. These factors created a political climate where merely the forecast of improvement caused the English to quit relief programs, often too soon, thus causing the situation to worsen for the Irish, creating staggering costs - in pounds as well as in lives.

Brief treatment of revolutionary activity is included, as well as interesting exposition of folk beliefs and practices.

This book avoids the "boring history" noose of more densely-written academic works, and is clearly targeted at young adults with its narrative style, but I recommend this for anyone wishing to read more deeply on this subject. Definitely written from an Irish point of view, but well researched and rich in original sources.