Spuds by Karen Hesse is the kind of story I was hoping to find after reading Come On, Rain! (1999). The language of Spuds flows like poetry and the story's ending made me smile. There's a dialect of English here that I don't have the knowledge to identify. Maybe it's Hesse's voice shining through. In this story, three siblings haul their red wagon out in the middle of the night to gather tiny potatos from a nearby field. A full moon lights their way, though, unfortnately, the fields are not lit well enough for them to be successful. The ending is too kind for me to reveal here. The paintings by Wendy Watson fit the story perfectly. She captures both the characters and the landscape. This is a loving family in a difficult life.
