Library Day - Growing Vegetable Soup Book Review

Tuesday is our "Library Day" when the children get to borrow a book from my library for a week, so I thought it would be a great day to post book reviews.

My mom, who also 'does daycare' is a Top Reviewer in books and an Advisor in the Kids & Family category at epinions.com. You can check out her reviews at kamel622. I've asked her to provide a book review each week to share here.

This week we are talking about gardening and Spring so Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert is a great book for Miss Kathy to review!

Lois Ehlert's Growing Vegetable Soup........A Children's Book of Gardening & Cooking

Product Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Pros: Wonderful Gardening Book, Great Illustrations, Simple Bold Text
Cons: Nope!
The Bottom Line: Growing Vegetable Soup is another wonderful children's book by Lois Ehlert. I highly recommend it for gardeners, cooks and the young children that they love.

When I went to pick up books that I had reserved at the library, I immediately was drawn to the bright red cover of the book Growing Vegetable Soup. Before I even got it to the daycare I had to read it myself. What a wonderful book this is!

The Story

This book starts with Dad says we are going to grow vegetable soup. I asked Jay and John if they knew how to grow soup...they giggled and told me I was silly. :)

Throughout the book we never see a face, but a father and childs hands busily at work planting the seeds and sprouts and giving them water. The story goes on to show the sun shining down on the plants as they groW, and grOW and GROW.

We see the hands tending the garden and weeding it, until the vegetables are ready to be picked or dug up. After washing them and cutting them up they are put into a pot of water and cooked into the best ever vegetable soup and it can be grown again...next year.

The Illustrations

One of the things that I love about this series of books, is the bright pages that Lois Ehlert uses to really captivate even the youngest eyes. Each of the entire pages are either bright purple, red, green, blue or lavender. These pages are very appealing.

The drawings are very simple and the bright colors of each of the sets of hands, the tools, the sun and even the soil make this books illustrations cheerful and fun to view. It seems as if there is more to see each time I've read this book.

All of the plants and seedlings are clearly marked on a plant stake, with their name. I love that not only is visually very helpful to me in identifying the plants, it is helpful when reading to kindergartners in helping them to recognize more words. My granddaughter Toria had fun trying to read what she thought each of the plant stakes said, and the fact that there was corn next to the corn stake made this a little easier.

The text in this book is large bold black writing...my absolute favorite type of writing in children's books..or any others for that matter. Although I wear glasses, I find very often if the font is too small or fancy then I have a hard time reading it. This is not the case with this book, the text is very plain and very easy on my eyes.

A real bonus to this book is that on the back jacket cover there is a recipe for vegetable soup...the directions are written out very simply and would be easy to read, follow and make soup with preschoolers. Perhaps next week we'll use a crock pot, and make some vegetable soup for lunch. :)

My Feelings

This book is a wonderful way to show children that food comes from more than a supermarket. Very often I don't think they realize that food can be grown and home cooked.

The colors are fabulous and make this book more fun to read. Even the gloved hands of a father and his child are bright reds, pinks and oranges. The tools that are used are bright blues, greens and purples. The pages themselves are very bright too, so draw the attention of children to them.

I love that the story is very simple too, with only two to ten words per page. This makes it quick and easy to read and will be an easy read for early readers.

Nuts & Bolts

Growing Vegetable Soup was written and illustrated by Lois Ehlert and published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1987.

This 32 page book is recommended for children 4 to 6 years old. I would also recommend it for families who garden or cook with their children a lot. It would make a wonderful addition to any families bookshelf as well as any daycares.

The price on the book is $12.95 in the hardback version, but it may also be purchased for as little as $4.74 in the paperback from buy.com.

ISBN: 0-15-2325805

Recommended:
Yes