Everybody Serves Soup

by Norah Dooley, Peter J. Thornton (Illustrator)

It has snowed so much that Carrie has the day off from school. She wants to earn money shoveling to buy her mother a Christmas present. But what should she buy? As she goes from house to house, Carrie finds everybody making soup. Carrie's neighbors come from many places, so each one is making a different kind of soup. As she collects recipes, Carrie begins to get an idea of what to give her mother. Accompanied by simple recipes, this tale is sure to please the many readers who loved Everybody Cooks Rice and Everybody Bakes Bread as well as those who are new to Carrie's delightful and diverse neighborhood.

Genres: Picture Books, Cultural, Cooking, Fiction, Childrens, Food

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Everybody Serves Soup (2000), Norah Dooley, like with her earlier food themed picture books Everybody Cooks Rice (1991) and Everybody Bakes Bread (1995), presents another (and for Everybody Serves Soup nicely winter-themed) premise for main protagonist Carrie to basically eat her way around her multicultural neighbourhood (in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the author's home, since the recipes featured in Everybody Serves Soup come and as stated on the dust jacket side flaps for Everybody Serves Soup from Dooley's neighbours and that Massachusetts is of course also known for having cold and snowy winters).

So in Everybody Serves Soup, during a so-called snow day (in other words, there is no school because of winter weather) and as Christmas approaches, main protagonist Carrie has bought gifts for everyone except for her mother, is kind of bankrupt and is thus hoping to earn cash by shovelling snow. But when Carrie is shown by Norah Dooley as helping her Latino friend Tito shovel his walk and steps, he tells her the landlord will sadly not pay, although they can warm up with a bowl of his sister Fendra’s Puerto Rican pea soup (with Carrie absolutely loving the soup and also getting the recipe from Fendra since Carrie's mother loves making and eating different types of soup) and then at the Stephanopolis' house, while Carrie and Tito's friend John cannot help shovel snow because he has a cold, his mother offers Carrie and Tito a cup of Greek lemon-chicken soup and once again giving Carrie the recipe.

And indeed, on and so on this textually goes so that by the end of Everybody Serves Soup, Dooley shows Carrie having collected recipes for seven different soups from various countries and ethnicities and as such also the main ingredients (with a bit of a pun most definitely intended here) of what she needs to make a thoughtful and from-the-heart Christmas present for her mother, namely a hand-written cookbook with the collected soup recipes, and that yes, and delightfully so, how to prepare the seven soups is also featured in Everybody Serves Soup, so that Everybody Serves Soup is thus not only a nice story but equally so a delightful cookbook (but just to say that while I do appreciate how diverse the seven recipes are, personally speaking, I do kind of wish that Norah Dooley would also be including a soup from Africa, the British Isles and Scandinavia in Everybody Serves Soup).

Now with regard Dooley's storytelling for Everybody Serves Soup, although her text does not feature any actual conflict and thus also not all that much of a plot, I really do majorly like the holiday theme of Everybody Serves Soup, that both Christmas and Hanukkah are featured, how Carrie realises that she does not actually need a lot of money for her mother's Christmas gift but just needs to buy a blank book and then copy the soup recipes she has collected into said book, and also that shovelling snow and winter thematics are actually a main part Norah Dooley's presented text for Everybody Serves Soup and therefore not simply background to and for the multicultural soup recipes. And while I personally do not really find how Peter J. Thornton illustrates human characters to my aesthetic tastes (too exaggerated with regard to facial features, too gaudily garish), his accompanying artwork for Everybody Serves Soup still does a very nice job visually reflecting and mirroring Dooley's words, that Thornton's images of buildings and of snow are definitely visually gorgeous and that the combination of text and images for Everybody Serves Soup combined with the included recipe section is for me nicely successful and as such also rates with four stars.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 STARS
Everybody Serves Soup As a story, I liked this one better than Everybody Cooks Rice. I liked the holiday setting and the idea of the girl trying to find a heartfelt gift for her mom (and that she ends up collecting recipes from neighbors and making a cookbook for her mom for Christmas works organically for the plot). That said, I think it's a little weaker in terms of the cultural illumination. All we really know about these families are their last names and what kind of soup they serve -- in some cases, there's not even any mention of any country or heritage connected to the soup. Still, I appreciate the overall concept that everyone enjoys soup, no matter your background. Also appreciate that one of the neighbors celebrates Hanukkah so this is not just a Christmas book. I don't care for the illustrations but that's just me.

Recipes included in the back for:
Peurto Rican Chuleton
Chicken Soup with Lemon (Avgolemono)
Southern Corn Chowder
Italian Lentil Soup
Miso Shiru
Beet and Cabbage Soup
Barbados Oxtail Soup

[Donna Mork · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story but way too may words for a kids book. Very interesting though. Had soup recipes at the back of the book.

[Dawn Fielder · Rating 5 out of 5]

clever. such a sweet look at multiculturalism.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed a similar book by this writer and illustrator last week. The books are all similar in structure. This time, the girl helps her father shovel snow from a big snowstorm, and the idea of a birthday present for Mom emerges as she goes from home to home trying to earn money by shoveling. We meet neighbors’ children (a few), and we learn the wide variety of soup being prepared at neighbors’ homes. The neighbors share their food and the recipes, also shared at the back of the book. It’s a lovely sharing of how similar every family is on a cold and snowy day. Each one was cooking soup, like Mrs. DeLoach’s Southern Corn Chowder, Mom and Anthony’s Italian Lentil Soup, and Mrs. Max’s Beet and Cabbage Soup. There is much to learn and discuss while reading this book aloud to younger children.

[Jenilyn Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. It's about a little girl who is trying to think of a Christmas present to get her mom, and she realizes that something simple like a recipe book of soups from around the neighborhood might be perfect. It's also interesting because you realize that a lot of her neighbors are from different ethnicities, so they all have their own spin on something as simple as soup. It would also be a fun project to do with your class. Have everyone bring in a recipe from their own family and then make a book of the recipes together to give to each child to take home. We did this when I was a kid in school and I loved it.

[Tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book that shows that people who come from different backgrounds can have similarities. It also, shows respect and caring that neighbors can give.The children in the book were willing to help their neighbors shovel the snow.The main character learned that the best gifts come from the heart. I would use this in my classroom as a read a loud. I could use it for several different topics ranging from similarities amongst different groups of people to helping one another.I would also, leave this book out so, that my students can look at it and read it when they want to during free time or independent reading time.

[Claire]

This is the third of four books about a friendly, food-loving girl named Carrie who lives in a multicultural neighborhood. Again, the same issues as the first book—not the best writing (especially the dialogue!) or illustrations. But I enjoyed seeing Carrie and her friends looking older than in the previous two books. And nothing is cozier than hot soup on a snowy day! Recipes for all the soups mentioned—from Japanese miso shiru to Italian lentil soup—are included in the back of the book.

[Ashley Correll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carrie is trying to earn money for a Christmas present for her mom by shoveling snow form the neighbors' driveways. She doesn't earn much money, but she does come up with a gift from the heart. As she visits each neighbor,they are all making soup from their own cultures. Carrie makes a multicultural soup cookbook for her mother. Recipes are included. Cultures represented in this book are Barbadian, Puerto Rican, Jewish, Greek, Japanese, Italian and Southern United States.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carrie wants to earn money to buy her mom a Christmas present so she decides to shovel snow for all of her neighbors. As she does so, she learns that each family is having soup. Each family is of a different culture and so is each soup. Carrie learns how to make each soup and at the end decides to give her mom a soup recipe book. In the back of the book, each soup recipe from the book is in there.

[Ashanti · Rating 5 out of 5]

makes soup