Button Soup

by Doris Orgel

One old button and a pot of boiling water? What kind of soup is that? With Rag-Tag Meg as cook and Mandy as her trusted helper, it's a tasty concoction. A brand-new twist on a well-loved old folk tale, perfect for reading together.

Genres: Picture Books

Library Binding

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Doris Orgel is a children's writer. She was born in Vienna, Austria. As a child, she and her family fled to Yugoslavia and finally the U.S. during the rise of the Nazi party in Europe. She attended Radcliffe College from 1946 too 1948, and graduated cum laude from Barnard College in 1950.

In her career, Ms. Orgel has written and translated several fairy and folk tales, as well as served as a translator for other authors. Prior to her work as a children's writer, Orgel was in magazine and book publishing. Her first original book, Sarah’s Room (1963) was published under the pseudonym Doris Adelberg. It was also republished in England and in Switzerland in German. In 1960, Ms. Orgel received the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for her translation of Willhelm Hauff's Dwarf Long-Nose (1960). Her book The Devil in Vienna (1978) received a Phoenix Award Honor in 1998. Ms. Orgel has also worked as a children’s book reviewer for "The New York Times".

She is married to Dr. Shelley Orgel; has three children: Paul, Laura, and Jeremy; two daughters-in-law: Sharon Lamb and Ling Chen Orgel; three grandchildren: Willy, Jennifer, and Julian; and three granddogs: Woof, Buster, and Otto. She lives in New York City.


For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/doris-orgel

Reviews

[Cheryl]

I can see why this is not better known, but I did quite like it. Of course, Stone Soup is one of my favorite folktales, and Orgel is one of my favorite writers of folk-tale adaptations, so I was prejudiced. I believe young me would have loved it ... especially the details that can be missed with a casual read, like the child's missing mother and grandfather as caregiver....

[Anne Lutomia]

Reads similar to the Stone Soup. I liked the illustration and the moral of the story-pulling together, sharing, and not ignoring homeless people.

[John]

I like this book because they make button soup: parsley and dill, check! Chicken: check! And people say, like "I have parsley and dill!" Now back to, maybe, the book review. Or, that was the book review. There's another button soup where there's Daisy and Scrooge McDuck (from DuckTales, a woo-woo; that isn't really in the duck book, but I just put it in there so everyone knew where Scrooge McDuck was from before)

[Mercedes Pérez Berbain]

I think Doris Orgel's version of the folk tale is simply delicious. There are many nuances which can be read between the lines, like the little girl's missing mother...Meg has the end in mind before starting and gets everyone to collaborate in the nicest possible way, even singing what she had announced from the start "I'm cooking button soup". I love how she builds relationships, encourages conversations and the fact that she is gone when her job is done, what a humble leader does.

[Chris]

Ditto

[Lauren]

Cute story about people working together to make something wonderful.

Writer's Workshop: What would you add to your button soup? Who do you know from your community who would bring things to add to your soup?

[Marilyn]

It's an updated version of Stone Soup.