Soup 1776

Soup #14

by Robert Newton Peck, Charles Robinson (Illustrator)

Rob is caught up in his friend Soup's plan to help their town of Learning, Vermont, celebrate the Fourth of July with a suitable pageant that sets the record straight about several of the town's citizens.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens

137 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Robert Newton Peck is an American author of books for young adults. His titles include Soup and A Day No Pigs Would Die. He claims to have been born on February 17, 1928, in Vermont, but has refused to specify where. Similarly, he claims to have graduated from a high school in Texas, which he has also refused to identify. Some sources state that he was born in Nashville, Tennessee (supposedly where his mother was born, though other sources indicate she was born in Ticonderoga, New York, and that Peck, himself, may have been born there). The only reasonably certain Vermont connection is that his father was born in Cornwall.

Peck has written over sixty books including a great book explaining his childhood to becoming a teenager working on the farm called: A Day no Pigs would Die

He was a smart student, although his schooling was cut short by World War II. During and shortly after the conflict, he served as a machine-gunner in the U.S. Army 88th Infantry Division. Upon returning to the United States, he entered Rollins College, graduating in 1953. He then entered Cornell Law School, but never finished his course of study.

Newton married Dorothy Anne Houston and fathered two children, Anne and Christopher. The best man at the wedding and the godfather to the children was Fred Rogers of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood fame.

A Day No Pigs Would Die was his first novel, published in 1972 when he was already 44 years old. From then on he continued his lifelong journey through literature. To date, he has been credited for writing 55 fiction books, 6 nonfiction books, 35 songs, 3 television specials and over a hundred poems.

Several of his historical novels are about Fort Ticonderoga: Fawn, Hang for Treason, The King's Iron.

In 1993, Peck was diagnosed with oral cancer, but survived. As of 2005, he was living in Longwood, Florida, where he has in the past served as the director of the Rollins College Writers Conference. Peck sings in a barbershop quartet, plays ragtime piano, and is an enthusiastic speaker. His hobby is visiting schools, "to turn kids on to books."

—From Wikipedia

For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/robert-n...

Reviews

[M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of Peck's stories I've (re)read since my pre-teen infatuation with them over twenty years ago. I feel now that I was either lacking in intelligence for even that age, or enjoyed being spoken down to. Much of the metaphors and allegories used are either badly done, or for comedy's sake alone. Which got old fairly rapidly, and the whole thing seems very much a rip of Twain's Tom Sawyer, with less controversy and depth of character. I give it three stars because it does lead to a rare chuckle now and then, and having been out of the target audience for a while, I can admit to possibly being harsher than is called for. The Soup stories will still retain a nostalgic appeal, though my getting reacquainted with them could be a decision I'll look at with regret in my dotage.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of giggles and laughs in this one. In the final book in the Soup and Rob series, the gruesome twosome are trying to correct history through reenacting the 1776 battle "Disabilities Disaster." Can a couple of boys dressed as Wahooligans in their undies convince the citizens of Learning that they've had a biased view of their founding fathers?

And we have a moment of silence for the memories we've made with Soup and Rob. What fun!

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robert Newton Peck has run out of his own childhood memories and makes a weird, formulaic, anti-PC (this was written in 1995) adventure full of implausible situations and names that aren't quite puns in this fourteenth Soup novel. Best stick with the first few in the series.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whimsical historical bend to the series.

[Amanda Wige · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The series ends with a bang. Soup and Rob create all kinds of mischief and mayhem that kept us giggling.