A small child in our house had just discovered superheroes and, instead of latching onto Batman or Spider-Man like every other kid on the playground, had fallen for a potato. Specifically a potato in a tape belt and a tiny red cape, fighting his arch-nemesis the Evil Pea. Supertato by Sue Hendra is the book responsible. It is genuinely funny, the illustrations are wonderful, and once a toddler is hooked, the obvious next step is to make your own. The whole thing takes about twenty minutes and uses what is already in the kitchen and the craft drawer. Ages 3 to 6.
What the book is about
The plot, briefly: Supertato is on a mission to save the other vegetables in the supermarket from the Evil Pea, who has escaped the freezer and is causing havoc. The pea ties carrots up, hides bananas, generally menaces the produce aisle. Supertato puts him back in the freezer where he belongs. It is the kind of story that bears endless retelling because a small child can immediately start inventing new things for Evil Pea to do.
What you need
- One large baking potato. The bigger the better. Supertato needs presence.
- One polystyrene egg for the Evil Pea, and dark green acrylic paint to color it in. A small ball of green clay or a styrofoam ball also works.
- Black, yellow, and red electrical tape. The slightly stretchy, slightly shiny kind. It sticks to a dry potato beautifully.
- Two pairs of googly eyes, one larger for Supertato and one smaller for the pea.
- A black permanent marker.
- A small piece of red felt for the capes.
- A few glue dots or a small bottle of craft glue.
- One blank sticky label for the pea’s eyes.
Making Supertato
Wrap a strip of black electrical tape around the middle of the potato so it sits like a belt. Cut a small rectangle of yellow tape and stick it onto the front of the belt as the buckle. Cut an even smaller red rectangle and stick it on top of the yellow. Draw a careful black S in the middle of the red square with the marker.
For the face, run another short strip of black tape across the top of the potato as a mask. Stick the two googly eyes onto the mask with glue dots. Cut a rough cape shape from the red felt and glue it to the back of the potato so it hangs down like a real cape. Add a small smile under the mask with the marker.
That is Supertato finished. The whole thing took less than ten minutes and required no artistic skill at all, which is just as well in my case.
Making the Evil Pea
Paint the polystyrene egg with the dark green acrylic paint. Ours needed three thin coats to cover properly. The polystyrene is thirsty. Let it dry between coats.
Once dry, run a short strip of black electrical tape across the top of the egg as the pea’s own mask. Cut two small ovals from the sticky label and stick them onto the black tape as eyes, then add black dots in the middle of each with the marker. Add a tiny mouth, slanted, to make him look as evil as a pea can look. Cut a small red felt cape and glue it to the back.
The good part: staging the adventure
This is where the activity earns its keep. Once a small child is asleep, the grown-up sets up a scene around the house as if Evil Pea has visited. We taped a carrot to the fridge door, attached a leek to the train track, and hung a banana from the side of a slide. The Evil Pea figure went on top of the banana, looking as smug as a green polystyrene egg can manage.
The reaction when they woke and found a carrot stuck to the fridge was the whole point. Supertato got handed over straight away and the search began. Kitchen first. Then living room. The leek was an early win, the banana was a later one, and Evil Pea was finally captured on top of it and marched back to the freezer, where the book says he belongs.
From there it is open-ended. New vegetables get rescued. New Evil Pea plots get invented. The potato lasts roughly a week before it starts to look sorry for itself, at which point you make a new Supertato in twenty minutes and start again. The Evil Pea figure, being polystyrene, lives forever.
For another book-themed craft that turns into a play set, our Three Little Pigs storytelling blocks do the same trick with painted wooden blocks instead of vegetables. And for a quieter sit-down option in the same age band, our free June coloring pages give a child something to color when Evil Pea has finally been recaptured.