I loved this elegantly simple story of how King Frederick the Great of Prussia convinced his subjects to start planting and eating potatoes. The language is simple and direct. “There was once a king called Fritz. One day he heard about a new wonder plant from South America: the potato.”

I also loved that the author is transparent about the difficulty of telling old stories like this. The final page reads, “This story may be a myth. But to this day, people honor King Fritz by putting potatoes on his grave.”

The illustrations are made of photos of potatoes and colorful potato prints. Perfect! This would be a fun book to pair with a potato printing activity, and the book itself would provide lots of inspiration.

This story was published originally in Germany. Thank goodness it, like the potato, made it across the Atlantic Ocean!

The Potato King, by Christoph Niemann. Owlkids: 2015