Customer Reviews

Potato Man (Orchard Paperbacks)

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Megan McDonald's "The Potato Man" is the tale of what happens when bullies get their comeuppance. It begins with a grandfather telling his granddaughter and grandson a story from his childhood. After just the first page, we are quickly whisked back to somewhere around the beginning decade of the 20th century. The "potato man" in question is a man who drives a vegetable-and-fruit cart, and who is catcalled and jeered at by the neighborhood boys because he is missing an eye and thus has a face that looks somewhat like a potato. It turns out that the grandfather telling the story is one of the boys who is rude to the potato man. When push comes to shove, however, and the boy realizes that he should treat the potato man as kindly as he himself would want to be treated, the potato man forgives him without a second thought. It's a powerful lesson for children.

Ted Lewin's illustrations are up to his usual sky-high standards. You can practically hear horse's hooves clop-clopping through the city neighborhood as they land on the cobblestone roads. You can almost smell the warm produce as it sits in the sun, and hear the hurdy-gurdy man as he cranks his instrument up to play "Pop Goes the Weasel." Lewin is a master, and he is in fine form here.

I remember loving this book when it was first read to me 20 or so years ago. I have a progressive neurological disorder called Neurofibromatosis, and it can cause many terrible things, but mostly tumors and disfigurements. So when I was read this book, it always made me think of people who are different; how different I might have become as I grew...So for me, it made me want to be empathetic towards people who looked different.

Kids today need a little more help to learn empathy, and they need to learn to appreciate the elderly. The book has such classic illustrations you rarely see in books now. It's simple and wholesome. This is one of the books I remember the most from my childhood. I may only be 25, so it doesn't say much, but it meant so much to me.

I read this story aloud to a group of early elementary kids and it held their attention, I guess. The pictures are nicely evocative and the story is fine. But why does it end with that straining bit about how much the kids adore the story? And what in the world does "abba-no-potato-man" mean anyway? They really wanted to know and I couldn't figure it out. Is it something about "apples-(something)-potato"? Or some nonsense phrase? They were straining to figure it out and I felt like an idiot for not knowing.