Community Soup

by Alma Fullerton, Alma Fullerton (Illustrator)

Overview

The bestselling picture book now in an enhanced edition with four pages of activity prompts and discussion questions

In a garden outside a Kenyan schoolhouse, children are working together to harvest the vegetables they have grown and make them into a soup for everyone to share. But Kioni is having trouble: her herd of mischievous goats followed her to school today, and they are trying to make their own lunch out of the vegetable garden! The ensuing chaos is cleverly resolved by the children, making their vegetable soup very tasty while saving Kioni's four-legged intruders at the same time.

Using rollicking verse with echoes of "Mary had a Little Lamb," award-winning author Alma Fullerton tells a lively story about communal projects and finding creative solutions that help everyone contribute. This lively story for young readers is graced with Alma's stunning primitive paper sculpture art—the first book she chose to illustrate herself using this unique style. Don't miss the soup recipe at the end of the story!

NEW in this edition: four pages of extra back matter on growing food, celebrating communities around the world, creating collage art, and making connections beyond the text. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781772782868
Publisher:	Pajama Press Inc.
Publication date:	07/18/2023
Pages:	36
Sales rank:	151,335
Product dimensions:	10.50(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Alma Fullerton was first known for her award-winning free-verse novels for juvenile and young-adult readers, including the Governor General’s Award-nominated Libertad. Since then, her picture books about children around the world have also won national and international awards, including a White Ravens Choice and a Bank Street Best Book for A Good Trade, and a USBBY Outstanding International Book for When the Rain Comes. Most recently, No More Plastic! was an honor book for the Green Earth Book Award and a finalist for both the OLA Forest of Reading Blue Spruce Award and the SYRCA Shining Willow Award. Alma lives in Prince Edward Island with her husband, her service dog, Gibson, and her own herd of mischievous goats.


Alma Fullerton was first known for her award-winning free-verse novels for juvenile and young-adult readers, including the Governor General’s Award-nominated Libertad. Since then, her picture books about children around the world have also won national and international awards, including a White Ravens Choice and a Bank Street Best Book for A Good Trade, and a USBBY Outstanding International Book for When the Rain Comes. Most recently, No More Plastic! was an honor book for the Green Earth Book Award and a finalist for both the OLA Forest of Reading Blue Spruce Award and the SYRCA Shining Willow Award. Alma lives in Prince Edward Island with her husband, her service dog, Gibson, and her own herd of mischievous goats.

Read an Excerpt

Kioni has a herd of goats / With hair of calico, /And everywhere Kioni goes, / Those goats are sure to... Oh, no!

Editorial Reviews

The recipe for Fullerton’s second picture book, after A Good Trade, involves a bit of “Stone Soup,” a dash of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and a rural Kenyan setting. Outside a schoolhouse, children harvest vegetables for soup: “In the community garden, Jomo picks a pumpkin. Dalila plucks some beans. But where is Kioni?” Fullerton’s illustrations mix paper collage with mixed-media elements, and the next page shows a girl with big brown eyes and a yellow cloth dress carrying bundles of grass, finishing her chores. When Kioni finally arrives at school, her goats follow, wreaking minor havoc and letting Fullerton riff on a familiar nursery rhyme: “Kioni has a herd of goats,/ with hair of calico./ And everywhere Kioni goes,/ those goats are sure to—go!” The shift from prose to verse is awkward, and story ends abruptly, but there’s much to enjoy in Fullerton’s textured illustrations, from the goats’ wooly hides, to the dark green vegetation in the garden and thickly painted hills in the distance. A portion of sales benefits the Creation of Hope Project, which supports building community gardens in Kenya. Ages 4–7. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Community Soup

2013 CCBC Best Books for Kids & Teens selection

2023 Children’s Book Council “June Hot Off the Press” Feature

"The full-color, mixed-media collages steal the show...A great choice for group sharing or for units on communities."—School Library Journal

"The recipe for Fullerton's second picture book, after A Good Trade, involves a bit of 'Stone Soup,' a dash of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,' and a rural Kenyan setting...there's much to enjoy in Fullerton's textured illustrations..."—Publishers Weekly

"For reading aloud or alone, a nourishing choice."—Kirkus Reviews

"The simple sentences have a conversational tone and the superb pacing makes for a lively read aloud...[The] paper-sculpture illustrations are a visual feast...Textures seem tactile, from the rough, peeling bark on twigs to the softly curling tufts of the goats' hair."—Quill & Quire

"The first line of this story draws readers into a day-in-the-life of Kenyan school community, which Fullerton depicts with mixed-media collage and paper-sculptures that lend a diorama-like depth to each scene."—International Reading Association Reading Today Online

"The simply told story uses sparse language, but it is the lively drawings that are so winning. Fullerton's incredible 3D collage illustrations in mixed media fairly leap off the page and cleverly complement the text."—CM Magazine

"Community Soup is a short fun tale that welcomes everyone...Alma Fullerton uses bright colors and texture in excitingly visual collages throughout the book. Each page comes alive and pops right off the page! Community Soup is wonderful for young readers looking to explore their culinary side with a little help from Kioni and her friends!"—New York Botanical Gardens, "Children's Books Explore the Power of Community"

“The three-dimensional, mixed media illustrations practically jump off the page, and had my girls trying to touch and feel them. After reading Community Soup, my daughters had fun making their own felt- vegetable soup combinations.”—Kids Read the World

“Fullerton’s paper collage illustrations are remarkable throughout.”—Dr. Larry Recommends

From the Publisher

The full-color, mixed-media collages steal the show…A great choice for group sharing or for units on communities.”—School Library Journal
“The recipe for Fullerton’s second picture book, after A Good Trade, involves a bit of ‘Stone Soup,’ a dash of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ and a rural Kenyan setting.”—Publishers Weekly
“For reading aloud or alone, a nourishing choice.”—Kirkus Reviews
“The simple sentences have a conversational tone and the superb pacing makes for a lively read aloud…[The] paper-sculpture illustrations are a visual feast.”—Quill & Quire
“The first line of this story draws readers into a day-in-the-life of Kenyan school community…”—International Reading Association
“Community Soup is a short fun tale that welcomes everyone…Alma Fullerton uses bright colors and texture in excitingly visual collages throughout the book. Each page comes alive and pops right off the page! Community Soup is wonderful for young readers looking to explore their culinary side with a little help from Kioni and her friends!”—New York Botanical Gardens, “Children’s Books Explore the Power of Community

Publisher

The simple sentences have a conversational tone and the superb pacing makes for a lively read aloud...[The] paper-sculpture illustrations are a visual feast . . . Textures seem tactile, from the rough, peeling bark on twigs to the softly curling tufts of the goats' hair.

Quill & Quire

Community Soup is a short fun tale that welcomes everyone...Alma Fullerton uses bright colors and texture in excitingly visual collages throughout the book. Each page comes alive and pops right off the page! Community Soup is wonderful for young readers looking to explore their culinary side with a little help from Kioni and her friends!

"Children's Books Explore the Power of Community" New York Botanical Gardens

The simply told story uses sparse language, but it is the lively drawings that are so winning. Fullerton's incredible 3D collage illustrations in mixed media fairly leap off the page and cleverly complement the text.

CM Magazine

The first line of this story draws readers into a day-in-the-life of Kenyan school community, which Fullerton depicts with mixed-media collage and paper-sculptures that lend a diorama-like depth to each scene.

International Reading Association Reading Today Online

"A fun read that helps children the way of life of Kenyan school children and how different life is from their own."

Resource Links

'It’s soup day!' The first line of this story draws readers into a day-in-the-life of Kenyan school community, which Fullerton depicts with mixed-media collage and paper-sculptures that lend a diorama-like depth to each scene...A satisfying and worthy purchase, a portion of this book’s earnings goes to the Creation of Hope Project, which supports community gardens at Kenyan schools."

Reading Today Online

PreS-Gr 2—With echoes of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," this amusing tale set in a Kenyan school garden tells the story of students and their teachers making soup. A girl's recalcitrant goats, however, do little to help with the process: "Kioni has a herd of goats,/with hair of calico./And everywhere Kioni goes,/those goats are sure to…Oh, no!" Finally, one clever student realizes that the animals have just the right ingredient to add to the meal: their milk. This title will be a fun read-aloud, with lots of opportunities for listeners to predict the upcoming action. The full-color, mixed-media collages steal the show. The illustrations add texture and vibrancy to the tale and advance the plot on several wordless pages. The book ends with a recipe for pumpkin vegetable soup. A great choice for group sharing or for units on communities.—Sara-Jo Lupo Sites, George F. Johnson Memorial Library, Endicott, NY

School Library Journal

Mary's little lamb becomes a village child's goats in this quirky, Kenya-set tale of making pumpkin vegetable soup. The story opens with children picking vegetables from a community garden. "But where is Kioni?" Kioni is looking for her goats. Suddenly, the text turns into a familiar rhyme, adapted to reflect its setting in an unnamed Kenyan village. Kioni's goats "with hair of calico" almost eat the vegetables, but they make a better contribution to the soup instead (never fear: It's just their milk). Textured collage illustrations combining natural materials and painted images show the busy children, the corn, pumpkin, sweet potato and other vegetables that make up the soup, and Kioni's calico-haired goats. The simple text is set on harvest-toned pages opposite full-bleed pictures. At one point, two consecutive images carry the action. Two double-page spreads emphasize highlights: goats in the garden ("GO!") and, at the end, goats and children each eating their appropriate foods. The story concludes with a recipe. Fullerton, who introduced young readers to rural Uganda in A Good Trade (illustrated by Karen Patkau; 2013), provides a positive picture of community cooperation in another rural setting, identified as Kenya in the publisher's cataloging. (A portion of the book's profits will go to Creation of Hope, a project supporting orphans from and around Kikima, Kenya.) For reading aloud or alone, a nourishing choice. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews