One Potato, Two Potato

By

Cynthia Defelice

Bluebonnet Award – 2009 Winner  

DeFelice, C. (2006). One potato, two potato. New York, NY:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

EXPOSITION: Mr. and Mrs. O‘Grady are a poor married couple who live all alone in a humble cottage on a bare and rocky hillside.

CONFLICT: They are so poor that they can only afford one of everything – one chair, one blanket, one plate, etc.  They dig up one potato each day and share it for their food.  Although they love each other, each one secretly wishes they had a same-gender friend to talk with.  

  

RISING ACTION: One day, while digging up the last potato they will have to eat, Mr. O’Grady finds a giant pot buried in the ground.  

CLIMAX: When he brings the pot home to show Mrs. O’Grady, the husband and wife accidentally discover that the pot is magic, because whatever you put into it duplicates.   

  

FALLING ACTION: So, by taking the individual items they have in their poor home and putting them into the pot to be duplicated, Mr. and Mrs. O’Grady soon have enough food, money and furniture to live a comfortable life for the rest of their days.  And, by getting into the pot themselves, Mr. and Mrs. O’Grady make exact duplicates of themselves to that each one will now have the same-gender friend they had secretly longed for.   

RESOLUTION: Because they are good, unselfish people, after they have just what they need to live out their days in simple security, Mr. and Mrs. O’Grady bury the magical pot back in the ground so it can someday help someone else.

WAS THIS A WELL-ILLUSTRATED BOOK?  Andrea U’Ren’s illustrations were a good compliment to Cynthia DeFelice’s story.  The pictures were drawn simply, with few elements in each image.  But this was very appropriate, since the story was simple and the people depicted in the pictures were, themselves, very simple.  Moreover, the reading level of the book was suitable for young readers who would appreciate the basic, easy-to-grasp nature of the colorful illustrations.  

PICTURE SOURCES:
http://suebe2.wordpress.com/2009/05/
http://cynthiadefelice.com
http://199.168.12.107/onepotatotwopotato
http://thenextweb.com                        
http://alohabible.net