Every Color Soup

by Jorey Hurley

Purple, yellow, orange, and red. Just the right mix of colored vegetables make a delicious soup in this tasty introduction to colors, counting, and veggies.

All you need is a pot, a spoon, an adult helper, and vegetables of many colors to make a very special soup—Every Color Soup! Learn colors and vegetable names in this bright and colorful picture book with minimal text perfect for the beginning reader. Jorey Hurley’s bright, graphic art and simple text make this vibrant book a perfect read-aloud for budding cooks and their families. This lively picture book also comes with a recipe!

Genres: Picture Books, Food, Storytime, Childrens, Cooking, Juvenile, Fiction

40 pages, Hardcover

Published January 23, 2018

About the author

Jorey Hurley studied art at Princeton, received her law degree from Stanford, and studied design at FIT. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great 'color' book for small children with a recipe for vegetable soup at the end! It is amazing how you can fill the 'nutrition' gaps in your diet by just knowing what certain colored fruits/vegetables have to offer! This book is a great way to get small children to look into planning a healthier diet by looking closer at what they eat.

[KC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a super simple story of how one makes a very yummy soup. Lovely, bold illustrations and plain text with a full recipe at the end.

[Mid-Continent Public Library]

Every read-through is a new experience with this book. Take turns with your little ones talking about each ingredient, what color it is, how it might taste, and adding it into your imaginary cooking pot to make a delicious soup at the end! The back matter even includes a recipe that you can try making together to create your very own Every Color Soup. Enjoy this one now by checking out a copy on Mymcpl.org or searching for it on Overdrive! - Reviewed by Stephanie at MCPL Reading Rocket

[Briony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple but effective text. This would be great for toddlersor preschoolers who want to start cooking.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Hurley's books! I could totally see using this one in a storytime.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very simple, good for naming the color and the veggie. Fantastic for toddler storytime.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book with big, bold simple illustrations. There's few words, but it offers ample opportunity for interaction as you name the vegetables and colors with your child. While there are no people's faces depicted, the hands and arms shown making the food are brown-skinned. There is a recipe in the back so that you can make your own Every Color Soup. I haven't tried it yet, but I've been informed by my preschooler that we will be cooking it this weekend!

[Annie Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an awesome and simple way to teach colors and cooking! Two-page spreads of graphic art, simple one-word pages for each color, and then the list of ingredients and recipe in the back. Genius!
Absolutely loved this!

[Rebecca Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awesome storytime read for color identification, vegetable identification, and dialogic reading! Instant favorite!

[Cathie Stumpenhaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

My two-year-old grandson is already demanding to “help” cook. He liked this book. And the last page was a delightful surprise.

[V]

This is another eye-catching new acquisition at our library.

V's Review

A soup is made with vegetables of various colors.

This book has simple, bright illustrations - a different color vegetable on each page. The premise is that all are used to make soup, the recipe for which is included. Some of the vegetables were unfamiliar to T, like the eggplant, and others were a little unclear, such as the green herbs. T is now interested in a few new vegetables; he wants to get celery next time we are at the grocery store. And it featured some staples in our meals, like lentils and carrots, so he could relate. Overall, it is a cute way to learn colors and vegetables.

T's Review
(age 2 years and 11 months)

After the first reading:

T: Let's read it again.

V: Okay, what did you like so much about it?

T: I just liked it!

During the second reading:

V: I'm going to count the carrots.

T: Can I count the garlic...the parsley...[and so on].

Afterward:

T: Can we read it again? Zeddemore really likes counting everything!
(T loves the Ghostbusters and has a small figure of Zeddemore, who was made to count everything during our third reading.)

V: He does? Is counting everything your favorite part?

T: Zeddemore likes counting. I like the red peppers.
(Which are actually tomatoes. I've told him this each time. But he wants them to be red peppers. So they're red peppers.)

[Mrs. Melaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through the process of making Every Color Soup, Hurley introduces young readers to colors, vegetables, and cooking. Double page spreads contain large images of one or several ingredients (mostly vegetables). A single word on each spread names the color of the ingredient. Among others, colors include purple (eggplant), yellow (onion and corn), orange (carrots), clear (water), white (garlic and salt), and black (pepper). After the ingredients are gathered, it’s time to ‘chop’ them up, ‘drop’ them into the pot, and ‘bubble’ them together at a boil. Finally, the colorful soup is put in a bowl, and it’s time to eat – ‘yum’. The fresh, healthy ingredients, beautifully rendered in bold primary colors, pop from the white background on which they are displayed. The last two pages show and name all the ingredients on one side and provide the recipe for making Every Color Soup on the other.

[June Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This appealing picture book is actually a colorful recipe for vegetable soup.

The illustrations of the ingredients are large and easy to identify. Each page is accompanied by a color word to match the ingredient(s) on the page. The last few pages show illustrations of an adult chopping the vegetables and small hand dropping the ingredients into a pot. An action word is included on these final few pages.

The full recipe is included at the end of the book along with smaller illustrations of each ingredient with a label beneath the illustration that matches the recipe on the next page.

I borrowed this book from the 'New Book' shelf in the children's section of the local public library.

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[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through simple and colorful images, this picture book celebrates the colors of foods around us. The book walks readers through the ingredients in a pot of “Every Color Soup” made of vegetables and lentils. Lentils provide the blue, eggplants the purple, tomatoes for red, and so on. The result is a concept book that is inviting and offers plenty of space for little listeners to talk about food, colors and cooking. Have a plate of rainbow veggies ready to share after reading this one! Appropropriate for ages 2-4.

[Phyll · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it a lot idk my st partner thinks the colors are kind of muted but I think it's pretty. One word per page and easy to translate into different languages for toddler or baby storytimes. I like the counting aspect and when I got to the lentil page I was like "yeah we're not counting those" but someone helpfully pointed out that there are EXACTLY 10 lentils spilled out of the little container so that was fun lol. I love soup books bc so many of them actually have recipes in the back. I'm going to try them all and finally be free.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

picture book (baby/toddler/preschool)
Love this! The veggie spreads just name the color in the text, and the child is invited to count/name the pictured food. Short and sweet, but with plenty of opportunity for interaction and conversation, and the illustrations are large, colorful and eye-catching. I will definitely get this for my storytime group.

"We're making every color soup.
We'll need...
purple [1 eggplant]
yellow [1 onion, 1 corn]
orange [3 carrots]"

[MaryLibrarianOH · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Hurley's typical fashion there are one word per spread to tell the story. This time kids will learn there colors while also learning the ingredients for vegetable soup. Recipe is included at the end.

Like that an adult hand is doing the chopping and then a child hand is dropping the items in the pot.

Good book for budding chefs.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while, I come across a picture book that is minimalist to the max. By which I mean, it has figured out how to use the fewest words and simplest pictures to communicate their maximum meaning potential. This book is about soup, which is delicious, and the words and pictures are delicious as well. I can't wait to try it out in storytime!

[Angela Massengale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great way to combine color concepts with the real world in a way even very young ones can easily understand and get excited about--especially when there is a recipe in the back of the book. Reading, engagement with color, food, and then playing in the kitchen. All great ways of creating early literacy skills at home.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book because there are lots of foods and you are making soup and there are even more than they show on the cover (yeah, even more!) and those are not just soup ingredients, they are every ingredient. And you always need food, and you can't cook food with fake food; isn't that sad? (I would say that was a "sad trombone.")

[Dannie Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colors, food, and interactivity, oh my! I'm in love with Every Color Soup as a storytime pick. I love using ASL and this would be a great time to practice our color signs. Or it could work as a fruits and veggies storytime. Pass out toy veggies and have children bring them up into a big pot to make soup! The possibilities for this magnificently simple title are endless.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very simple and clean illustrations, single words on most pages. Can scale this up for preschool by asking what each of the ingredients are (and perhaps making the recipe in the back?). Would work well as a board book.

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colorful illustrations, brief text make for a yummy book about making vegetable soup. If you pair this with "Growing Vegetable Soup" by Lois Ehlert, you will have a fine storytime about vegetables and soup.

[Molly Cluff (Library!) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely would work for a Toddler Tales on food (or even a preschool storytime). Kids can call out the colors of the items going into the pot, and you can ask them if they know what the vegetables are when appropriate. Some fun action with the "chop". Simple and great!

[Andrea Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for early listeners. Every color, including clear, to make vegetarian soup. Very clear images.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh yeah for a scarf storytime story? PERFECT.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very simple book that reads like a recipe (for young kids). Each page shows vegetables of a different colour, with the only text being the name of that colour.

First page: "We're making Every Color Soup. We'll need..." Pages of colourful vegetables and ingredients (broth, pepper) follow with only one word per page. Once the ingredients have been listed, the directions come next. Again, one word per page - chop, drop, bubble, yum.

SOUP-er simple, bold, attractive book to empower little ones to eat and cook healthy!

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

My two star rating is rough because on a different scale it would be a 3-4. The text is EXTREMELY simple, but it could be great for a lesson or storytime about colors, cooking, or nutrition. Partnering it with the right activities could make it a great choice, but it's not necessarily amazing to just read on its own. Delightfully simplistic illustrations that help show (along with the summary on the book jacket) that an adult helper is needed.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A straightforward listing of ingredients needed for soup-sorted by color. The author states what color the ingredients are, rather than what their name is. A recipe is in the back, and a diagram of all the ingredients are labeled. You could easily ask children to identify the food, guess the color, ask if they have ever eaten that food, ect. The simplicity of the text and illustrations makes this very versatile.

[Darlene Ivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simplicity itself. A very brief text and awesome eye-catching graphic illustrations create a book that you talk through rather than read. Turn a page and identify the vegetable or vegetables. Perhaps have one on hand to touch and taste. Discuss how you would need to cut it to go in a soup. Definitely make the soup as a culminating activity. Look forward to a new adventure every time you read the book.