Review by Booklist Review
Knowing where your food comes from is an increasingly popular topic, and in this tale, the question of what's for dinner becomes an account of the complexities of producing a simple bowl of soup. A granddaughter asks her grandmother what's in the soup she's making. Rather than list ingredients, the grandmother starts narrating everything that goes into growing a vegetable. She works backward from seeds to gardeners, farmworkers and merchants, who are all in the pot. The environment's in the pot too, because the veggies need soil and sun. People need so much to even get to grocery stores, like bus drivers and roads, so the community's in the pot. In the end, it's an easy recipe to remember: the whole world is in there, the granddaughter smartly concludes. It's a lovely portrait of how interconnected everything is. It does paint an overly rosy picture at times with descriptions of contented and eager workers, which may warrant discussion after a pandemic that has highlighted deep inequalities for laborers in our food systems.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
As Nanni, an older bespectacled woman, stirs "a big metal pot" on the stove, her implied-Chinese granddaughter questions what's inside, prompting Nanni to reveal all the labor that went into the soup she's making. Simply worded, frequently lengthy paragraphs by Liguore detail each element of the process, from the seeds, to the people who harvest and transport: "I also see the merchants who greet the trucks, boats, and trains." Melding the sensibilities of art nouveau with Asian nature paintings, Zhang illustrates a detailed, whimsical watercolor world with much to pore over as anthropomorphic animals and celestial bodies walk among humans of varying skin tones. Dense passages and formal language give this picture book a slightly dated feel, but contemporary themes of radical transparency and appreciating interconnectedness will ring true for a modern audience. Ages up to 8. (Aug.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A grandmother dishes up a potful of surprising ingredients and traces the origin of a family recipe. When a child asks Nanni what is inside the big pot on the stove, Nanni's unexpected response--"Seeds"--inspires a deep dive into the lengthy process through which plant-based food is cultivated and distributed to modern consumers. As Nanni describes the vital roles of gardeners, soil and rain, natural light, and bees, the child envisions wondrous scenes with touches of magic, like an anthropomorphized theatrical cast of sun, moon, and stars, or a world that includes fantastical creatures living alongside humans. The colorful spreads are jam-packed with details, including Nanni's rustic kitchen, harvesting in the fields, and a cityscape bustling with traffic. The idea that all of these elements are found in the pot may pose a challenge for mature readers to explain to their youngsters the figurative speech and abstract thinking underlying the narrative. Likewise, the romanticized portrayal of farm workers feels ironic given the evidently industrialized food system transporting vegetables via "delivery trucks, boats, and trains." Such inconsistencies aside, this story celebrates cooking with love, the essential ingredient binding the generations of this family through a single special recipe, while drawing attention to the abundant--all too often invisible--labor in food production. Nanni and her grandchild are of Chinese descent. Philosophically rendered; requires guided reading, patience, and imaginative rumination on the true meaning of farm to table. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
