Bone Soup: A Spooky, Tasty Tale

Three witches’ cupboard is bare save for “a small, dry bone.” Why not make bone soup? Before readers can say Stone Soup, the weird sisters embark on a quest to secure ingredients from their nasty neighbors. The first candidates, a fuzzy monster and a ghost, are skeptical and grumpy (“Bone soup? Impossible! Go away! There will be time for your tricks later,” they both say). But they can’t resist adding to the pot, and soon the entire creepy community has made bone-chilling contributions (a werewolf adds “Wrinkled fingers, o-o-o-old toenails”). When the hungry crowd turns demanding, the initial monster’s little daughter steps up to ensure that soup’s on. The story suffers somewhat from narrative sprawl (the text has more refrains than it needs), but Capucilli (the Biscuit series) deserves kudos for employing plenty of tasty vocabulary. Drawings by Knight (Good Knight, Bad Knight), meanwhile, feel as ghoulishly bright as a jack-o’-lantern. A Halloween soup recipe—parsnips and carrots take the place of fingers—concludes the book. Ages 4–8. [em](July) [/em]