Stone Soup
By Ann McGovern, Pictures by Winslow Pinney Pels
This was my FAVORITE book growing up, and rereading it I still loved it! This is a about a traveler who comes to this old lady's house and asks for food but she tells him she doesn't have any. As she is about to shut the door on him, he asks if she has a stone because he can make soup from a stone.
So he gets a stone from the road and then he asks her if she has some boiling water to make the soup, so she boils some water. He puts the stone in the soup, and then to make the soup cook faster they added onions, to smell better they added carrots, to taste better they added beef bones, to make it fit for a king they added pepper and salt, and to make it thicker they added butter and barley.
Each time they added something the traveler would say something like: "It is fit for a prince now. But it would be fit for a king with a bit of pepper and a handful of salt." In the end they ate a feast fit for a king and as he was leaving he took the stone and put it back in his pocket. When the old lady asked why he was taking the stone he said: "Well, the stone is not cooked enough. I will have to cook it some more tomorrow."
One of the many reasons I love this book is just because the story is great for kids. It's catchy, fun, short, but informative. I also love the pictures, especially in this book, they add so much and made me laugh when I was younger. I think this book is a great way to not only teach kids lessons about making something out of the little things and that you always have more than you think you do, but also very basic concepts like list making-- every time they added a new ingredient they listed all the others that were in the pot as well.
I found this blog when looking for a picture of the book. This is a cool idea that you could do in a classroom, even though this blog is for a family. It's how to make "stone soup" and have everyone participate.
Another great site the the above one links to is Stone Soup for the World, which is ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
i am very happy to know that these blogs will be here long after our class is finished. The links you have found are wonderful. Using a stone for real that is exciting. I am going to do this with my three year old that way she can tell her sisters and brother about it. Thanks for bringing this wonderful classic that can be used in every classroom. Lists are a great way to use this book. You could ask students questions such as, "where do you think the man was traveling from?", or "How can we make this a modern tale?".
ReplyDeleteThe stone soup making went amazing. First time in forever that the baby ate all her dinner, but she did make it so she was very proud to eat it. We even used the website's suggestion which was to look for a stone. We got to go hunting and it was so FUN! Thanks for this time honored classic.
DeleteThose links are so great! This book is awesome! I think for list making this is a great one. Lists are so important and this really highlights them well. I also love that you used this book and your right the pictures themselves tell a great story and are extremely entertaining.
ReplyDeleteThis book brought so many memories flooding back into my mind. I read this book in Elementary School and am delighted to hear that I'm not the only one. The links you posted are very useful and I will be bookmarking them.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this book, and I was so excited when I saw thats what you were doing for your book talk. This could be a fun book to use for a cooking lesson in a class. Maybe bring a big pot to class and all the ingredients from the book and allow students to throw them into the pot. It could be fun for them to get involved.
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