Review Detail

BONE SOUP is a story of community and cooking. Three witches are getting hungry, but they only have one small bone. They decide to make bone soup with the help of their neighbors. First, they ask the monster for some water. Then, they ask the ghost for something savory. They then collect ingredients from other Halloween creatures, such as the eye of a giant, claws, fingers, and more. Their final product - delicious!

What I loved: Ultimately, this is a story about a community (of monsters) coming together to create something for all to share. Everyone brings something small to the table in one ingredient or another, but together, they make some really special. The book has Halloween flair in the creatures that appear as well as the types of ingredients that go into the bone soup. The images are full of color and details that evoke all the spookiness of Halloween with plenty of cute to balance it out.

This would work best for older elementary school readers who can appreciate the humor of the bone soup and not the potentially scary ingredients and monsters. The length of the story also lends itself best to older picture book readers, and the end of the book includes a recipe for readers to make their own special soup as in the story.

What left me wanting more: Some of the text can be a bit tough to read, as it wraps around and through pages in black ink over brightly colored backgrounds. The size is also quite variable, which means that it is tougher to read in some places than others.

Final verdict: BONE SOUP is an entertaining Halloween tale of community and coming together to create something special.