Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
My rating: 3/5 cats
i think i am finally becoming an adult through reading children’s books. first: this book is pretty good—it’s much more complicated than i had anticipated, being a children’s book. i have read children’s nonfiction never, not even as a child, and i was pretty impressed—the vocabulary is not oversimplified and the ugly bits aren’t avoided, either. but this makes me realize that i’m less familiar with history than a ten-year-old. i mean, obviously i knew about the potato famine and the starvation and emigration, but i didn’t know about the evictions and the disease and the attempts at fixing things that went horribly wrong all on top of the starvation. i have always liked the idea of laissez faire (and not only because it is french and therefore sexy), even though it is such an adolescent concept, really. but i never think about the dark side of it. like—what if the one crop you are growing fails you. and then you starve. and no one will help you. (except the choctaw nation, still reeling from their own near-extinction, sending money, which is so sweetly heartbreaking) so i am growing out of the casual appreciation of it. and i’m struggling here, because rent has gone up, and subway fare has gone up, and my tuition has gone up, and my pizza place raised their prices (and i need my caesar chicken pie) and i’m not getting overtime anymore, but you know what?? at least i don’t rely on one crop to feed me. at least i don’t have dysentery. this book made me feel like a whiny little baby because last night i was disappointed that the salad bar i like to go to put raisins in the salad instead of the dried cranberries i prefer. ugh, i am so spoiled. but this book is very well-researched, and shows the whole situation, and represents all sides of the issue, like why the wave of irish immigrants made the americans apprehensive. it’s not an apology for it, but its an explanation. i have no idea what age this is intended for, but it’s got people dying on the beach in their own waste and drowning at sea and starving in their houses, so i would guess the older the better. say, 31.
read my book reviews on goodreads
