Community Soup

PreS-Gr 2—With echoes of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," this amusing tale set in a Kenyan school garden tells the story of students and their teachers making soup. A girl's recalcitrant goats, however, do little to help with the process: "Kioni has a herd of goats,/with hair of calico./And everywhere Kioni goes,/those goats are sure to…Oh, no!" Finally, one clever student realizes that the animals have just the right ingredient to add to the meal: their milk. This title will be a fun read-aloud, with lots of opportunities for listeners to predict the upcoming action. The full-color, mixed-media collages steal the show. The illustrations add texture and vibrancy to the tale and advance the plot on several wordless pages. The book ends with a recipe for pumpkin vegetable soup. A great choice for group sharing or for units on communities.—Sara-Jo Lupo Sites, George F. Johnson Memorial Library, Endicott, NY