In this story, Jamie O’Rourke, an
extremely lazy Irishman, must find food for the winter after his wife injures
herself digging potatoes. Instead of digging the potatoes himself, Jamie takes
a walk through the woods and stumbles upon a leprechaun. Typically, leprechauns
offer their pots of gold for ransom when they are captured, so Jamie captures
the leprechaun hoping for this reward. However, this leprechaun offers him a
seed that will grow a huge potato and Jamie accepts. After planting the
seed, the potato grows so large that it takes the entire town to move and eat the potato all winter long. In the end, the townsfolk became so tired of eating
potatoes that they gladly feed Jamie O’Rourke and his wife for the rest of
their lives as long as Jamie never grows a huge potato again. His wife agrees
that Jamie was not so foolish after all, but the last picture shows that the Leprechaun
has a huge pot of gold.
This story would be ideal to use in
a first or second-grade classroom. I would love to use this book when studying
positive character traits like “diligence.” The story focuses on laziness but
idealizes it since Jamie is rewarded for being lazy.
Therefore, this book could create an analytical conversation about laziness not
always being rewarded in real life. This would also be a great book to use when
students learn about the difference between reality and fantasy. This book
incorporates many realistic aspects like relying on one’s garden as a source of
food, but the leprechaun and giant potato create themes of fantasy throughout
the book. Students could discuss what can and cannot be real from this story.
Furthermore, the beginning of the book offers insight into the religious
beliefs of the Irish. For instance, they mention the saints and that Jamie was
going to see a priest for confession. This book would be interesting for
students to study the culture of the Irish especially since this may be the
heritage of some of the students.
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