Clever Tom and the Leprechaun

Excellent end notes and illustrated endpapers turn this into a solid four-star read. Cute story, even cuter art.

The only thing is I prefer this 'trick' to be extended, in that Tom would realize he's dug a patch of weeds into arable land and can obey the wee man's wish "May you do much good with what you find" by planting it with a crop.

The leprechaun tricks Tom in this story and even though you have a twinge a sadness for Tom you realize that the leprechaun didn't lie, he was just careful in his choice of words!

This book was a great book to read in the month of March because of St. Patrick's Day. This story is a folk tale that has been told for decades. Clever Tom finds a leprechaun in his fields one day and captures him to get his treasures. Of course the Leprechaun tricks Clever Tom and Tom learns a lesson about something he should never forget when roaming his farm.

This book is about Tom Fitzpatrick who found a leprechaun in a field, grabbed him and wouldn't let him go until he showed Tom where his buried treasure was. The leprechaun leads Tom to a field and tells him he'll need a spade to dig up the treasure. Tom ties something around the tree that it is buried under and makes the leprechaun promise not to take it off so Tom will know what tree it's under after he gets his spade. The only problem is that when Tom comes back, the leprechaun had tied the same ribbon around every tree in the field. From that day on, Tom never went anywhere without his spade just in case.
Critique (Genre): This is a good example of a fairytale because it is based off of a generation telling another generation this show more story and that generation telling another generation and so on down the line until today. This book is a short story with a folkloric fantasy character that is normally in a fairytale.
Media: Watercolor show less

Clever Tom Fitzpatrick thinks his fortune is made when he captures a leprechaun and forces him to reveal the hiding place of his gold, but the leprechaun is clever too.

Clever story of how a leprechaun outwits Tom. Great for inferencing.

Fun during a unit on mythology and folklore and/or for St. Paddy's Day.