Librarian leaves the silo

Hey there my friends,

Today I want to talk about Alberto Salas Plays Paka-Paka con la Papa written by Sara Andrea Fajardo and illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal.

Paka-Paka means “hide and seek” in Spanish, and a papa is a potato.

In this book, Alberto Salas, a naturalist in Peru who travels the Andes mountains looking for different varieties of potatoes.  Some are different colors, some are tiny, and some are inedible.  He is trying to find as many as he can before climate change destroys them.  His specimens go to the International Potato Center genebank where scientists use them to create more resilient potato plants.  The art in this book is beautiful. I love how Martinez-Neal layers colors and has tiny details in her illustrations.  I especially love Fajardo’s use of languages.  Alberto speaks Spanish, Quechua (the Incan language) and English.  The book contains biographical information about Alberto Salas and explains about biodiversity and how potatoes can help feed people in hunger now and in the future.

My ideas for using this book in classes.

Science- Making a potato battery.  I tried this about forty years ago in middle school and it didn’t work.  It turns out that if you boil the potato for ten minutes, it works much better

Shoutout to Instructables for directions on how to do this: https://www.instructables.com/Potato-Battery-Driven-LED/

This book can also be used in studying food chains and climate change.

Younger students may enjoy growing potatoes from seed, especially if you get one of those planters that you can see through.

Linguistics- This book contains Spanish, Quechua and English. It also has great onomatopoeia examples. 

Art- Younger students can make potato prints, and older students can make plant drawings inspired by the art in this book.

Social Studies- Obviously, there is the geography of Peru that can be studied.  My favorite connection for the older students is the Incas.  Incas used to preserve potatoes by freezing them, then squishing out the liquid once they thawed.  It’s called Chuna.  I once made this with some middle schoolers.  It works, but it tastes disgusting. I would rather eat my potatoes another way.  The potato was the base of the Incan diet, and there are a lot of Incan recipes out there.

Related books: