The Pot that Juan Built
Written by Nancy Andrew
Illustrated by David Diaz
Reviewed by CA (age 8) & AS (age 9)
Juan was a poor man who built pots to sell so that he could buy food and become rich. In order to make the pots, Juan needed to find dough, paints, a brush, and hair for the brush. He found the dough from the mountain, he cut his hair to use for the brush, he made a brush from dead animal bones, and he made paint from melted rocks. Juan then started making pots, but he had a hard time doing it because he did not have a spinning machine to roll the pot with. So, he ended up using his hand. Juan made lots and lots of pots, and began to sell them by his house. To find out whether or not Juan got rich, read "The Pot That Juan Built."
We enjoyed this book, because it taught about Juan's work and where it ended up. Our favorite part was when Juan picked up cow manure to build pots with, because it was very funny. The illustrations in this book were perfect because they showed a lot of details and they were very colorful.
Kids who like pots would like this book because it teaches you how to make a pot. We thought that "The Pot That Juan Built" was kind of hard to read, because it had a lot of words that were too difficult for us, so older kids would like this book. Adults would like this book too because they could learn how poor people live.