Review by Booklist Review
What is Every Color Soup? A healthy, flavorful blend of fresh vegetables, lentils, and spices simmered in broth or water. As in Hurley's previous picture books, she takes a minimalist approach here to both text and images. Apart from the brief setup (We are making Every Color Soup. We'll need . . .), only one word appears on most double-page spreads. When it's purple, an enormous eggplant appears against a white background. The green spread features a celery stalk and parsley leaves. More ambiguously, the clear spread shows seven see-though containers of pale green liquid. What is clear the container, the liquid, or both? Illustrating chop and drop, a chef's brown hands prepare ingredients and add them to the pot. The closing spread includes all the ingredients, labeled, on one side, and the written recipe on the facing page. The large format gives plenty of space for this graphically bold celebration of vegetables. With artwork that shows up particularly well from a distance, this pleasing picture book introduces colors and vegetables while offering opportunities for counting and cooking as well.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Using the flat graphic art style employed in her earlier books, Hurley introduces the very young to a variety of ingredients used to make soup. On a spread that includes a cutting board, knife, wooden spoon, and large soup pot, the text reads, "We are making Every Color Soup./ We'll need." With each ensuing page turn, youngsters see a spread containing an outsize image of one or two ingredients, rendered in Photoshop, on white background. Except for a jar of blue lentils that might be mistaken for something else, no ingredient is labeled. Only a color word appears in large type. For example, the word "white" is opposite a salt cellar and garlic cloves resting on a table. Seven individual measuring cups of liquid are labeled "clear." Brown hands "chop" the ingredients, "drop" them into the pot, which then "bubble[s]," and finally, a bowl of soup with colorful ingredients floating on top is set out on a checkered cloth. "Yum." Chopped images of the food items within, including dots of pepper, are scattered across the endpapers, and the title page spread cleverly depicts the veggies growing in a garden. Back matter includes a recap of all the ingredients and their names as well as a soup recipe that includes all the foods shown. VERDICT The large colorful illustrations make this versatile offering perfect for a group study of colors and of different foods. Budding cooks will enjoy working with an adult to follow the recipe included.-Marianne Saccardi, Children's Literature Consultant, Cambridge, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In this simple picture book, each spread shows one or more ingredients of a color named in the very spare text: "yellow" (corn and onion) / "orange" (carrots) / "white" (salt and garlic cloves); then it's "chop / drop / bubble / yum." Preschoolers may enjoy identifying each ingredient in the pleasing digital illustrations that mimic cut-paper art. The full recipe for "Every Color Soup" is appended. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Hurley cooks up a big pot of soup, introducing young children to the colorful veggies, kitchen equipment, and cooking techniques that bring it to table.Opening in a lush garden foreshadowing the soup's ingredients, the narrative shifts to the kitchen: "We are making Every Color Soup. / We'll need // purple." That single, final word rests on bright white space, near a page-straddling eggplant with a green stem cap. As new color names are introduced on succeeding pages, the number of depicted ingredients increases, providing the opportunity to count objects from one to nine. (That is, until the pepper mill appears, scattering scores of "black" pepper specks.) The concept "clear" defines an array of seven glass measuring cups of broth, while "blue" is paired with a jar of Le Puys lentils. At "chop" and "drop," Hurley's signature Photoshopped pictures reveal the brown hands of an adult (with vibrant, pink-polished fingernails) and a child. One double-page spread tips vertically to show the soup pot bubbling on the gas stove, steam rising against the blue-and-white tile backsplash. A final "yum" appears alongside an overhead view of a bowl of the finished soup atop a red-and-white-checked tablecloth. Hurley appends a visual glossary of the ingredients and a simple recipe for Every Color Soup (with adult help mandated). Lovely and playful for storytimes and family sharing. (Picture book. 2-5) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
