#29 Jamie O' Rourke and The Pooka (Irish)

Jamie O’ Rourke and the Pooka #29

Written and Illustrated by: Tomie De Paola

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

2000

Multi-cultural (Irish)

            This Irish book is about a wife that is going to her sister’s house. The wife prepared food and cleaned the house for the husband so all he has to do is clean up after he eats. When his wife leaves his friends come over. They had a feast and did not clean up after themslves. While he was asleep to pooka cleaned up the mess. His friends came over and he told them that he did all the cleaning. So he decided he could do this every night since it was getting cleaned up. He was so grateful he gave a jacket to the pooka but then the pooka stopped cleaning. He said he was only supposed to clean until he was rewarded. His wife came home and he was in trouble.

            The illustrator uses liquid acrylic on handmade Fabriano paper. The text is formally placed because the pictures are framed and the text is below the picture. Warm colors are used like yellow, orange and red throughout the book. The line of the book is horizontal.

            This book would be appropriate for kindergarten and up. You could use this book to show different dialects because the main characters talk different then what Americans do. You could use this book for moral education as well. You could feed off this by saying you should do your own work. You could also teach your students about fiction books because the pooka talks in the book. Tomie DePaola has received many awards for his books like Caldecott Honor book Strega Nona and Newbery Honor book 26 Fairmount Avenue. His latest award was the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal in 2011.