Bone Soup: A Spooky, Tasty Tale

by Alyssa Satin Capucilli (Author) Tom Knight (Illustrator)

Bone Soup: A Spooky, Tasty Tale
Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

Three little witches and a bunch of spooky characters come together to prepare a delicious batch of Bone Soup in this Halloween tale based on the beloved fable, Stone Soup. This just-scary-enough picture book comes with a recipe for Bone Soup--perfect for Halloween eating.

Trick-or-treat? Trick-or-treat!
We've something usually good to eat!

One Halloween morning three witches are looking for a tasty treat and they find only a small bone in their cupboard. So they decide to go from door to door in their village to find just the right ingredients for their Bone Soup. No one in the village is convinced that soup can be made from a bone, until the littlest monster reveals just what the special ingredient should be.
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Hardcover
$17.99

Kirkus Reviews

“Stone Soup” gets a Halloween remake. Three hungry witches, finding only a dry bone in the cupboard, take their cauldron door to door collecting ingredients for their bone soup. Both the neighbors, who are initially suspicious of the witches, and their additions to the pot will be unfamiliar to children used to grandma’s chicken soup: A ghost contributes a giant’s eye; a ghoul brings a lizard’s tail; a werewolf adds old toenails. The beguiling smell attracts more and more creatures, and as their hunger increases, their patience grows thin: They will not put up with any tricks from the witches. (Capucilli’s wordplay here is a delight: “ ‘Let’s wrap this up now,’ mumbled the mummy. / ‘Don’t rattle me further,’ clattered the skeleton.”) Just as it looks as if the witches will be part of the soup, a monster child saves the day, and bone soup is shared and enjoyed by all. Knight’s illustrations, made with charcoal and pencils and colored digitally, have just the right mix of creepy and humorous, treading the line between scary and fun. His palette is suitably Halloween-y. Just right for sharing with neighbors this October—either the tale or the (real) recipe that follows, or maybe both. (author’s note) (Picture book/folktale. 4-8)

Copyright 2018 Kirkus Reviews, LLC Used with permission.

Publishers Weekly

Three witches' cupboard is bare save for "a small, dry bone." Why not make bone soup? Before readers can say Stone Soup, the weird sisters embark on a quest to secure ingredients from their nasty neighbors. The first candidates, a fuzzy monster and a ghost, are skeptical and grumpy ("Bone soup? Impossible! Go away! There will be time for your tricks later," they both say). But they can't resist adding to the pot, and soon the entire creepy community has made bone-chilling contributions (a werewolf adds "Wrinkled fingers, o-o-o-old toenails"). When the hungry crowd turns demanding, the initial monster's little daughter steps up to ensure that soup's on. The story suffers somewhat from narrative sprawl (the text has more refrains than it needs), but Capucilli (the Biscuit series) deserves kudos for employing plenty of tasty vocabulary. Drawings by Knight (Good Knight, Bad Knight), meanwhile, feel as ghoulishly bright as a jack-o'-lantern. A Halloween soup recipe--parsnips and carrots take the place of fingers--concludes the book. Ages 4-8. (July)

Copyright 2018 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781481486088
Lexile Measure
550
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Publication date
July 20, 2018
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV017030 - Juvenile Fiction | Holidays & Celebrations | Halloween
JUV012040 - Juvenile Fiction | Fairy Tales & Folklore | Adaptations
JUV050000 - Juvenile Fiction | Cooking & Food
Library of Congress categories
Folklore
Tales
Soups
Witches
Halloween
JUVENILE FICTION / Holidays & Celebrations /
JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic
JUVENILE FICTION / Fairy Tales & Folklore / A

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