Review by Booklist Review
In this Italian important, rabbit home cook Mr. Lepron becomes renowned for his extraordinary vegetable soup. When he makes soup at home, he takes a nap, and his dreams add special flavor to the cooking soup. Mr. Lepron shares his delicious soup (made seasonally from local vegetables) with family and friends, then eventually expands to sell multiple flavors of canned soup throughout the world. In the process, though, Mr. Lepron loses his secret ingredient: his dreams. In the end, he decides to close his factories and return to his dreamy home cooking. Is the story a metaphor for the woes of capitalism or an homage to local food and cooks? It's not entirely clear, but it does succeed on its own merits. Di Giorgio's lush illustrations have a sense of humor visible in details--from cans of soup to witchy dreams. Appropriately, though, the illustrations reveal their greatest warmth in the vegetables gathered by Mr. Lepron's extended family and in the family gatherings at which they eat the amazing soup. Mysteriously beautiful.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Fantastically detailed watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations give extra sparkle to this theatrically narrated fable about change caused by the relentless demands of growth and success. Prior collaborators Zoboli and Di Giorgio (Professional Crocodile) introduce Mr. Lepron, "a very handsome hare with a bright shiny coat and lovely long ears," who makes a tasty vegetable soup so renowned that he eventually starts a factory to manufacture it: "Children cry for it; adults crave it." But the inventive dreams that seem to power Mr. Lepron's soup-making soon turn to nightmares, and his real-life business begins to suffer complaints. Lush illustrations imagine it all: a cutaway view of Mr. Lepron's garden and kitchen, hilarious scenes of global soup fame, the soup label itself, and dream after dream after dream, including one in which Hera and Zeus, raving about the product, "order Apollo to make ready a chariot to take them to Earth." Only Mr. Lepron's own resolution can save him in this marvelously visualized culinary fable about simplicity gone spectacularly awry. Human characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3--7. (Oct.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A rabbit learns a lesson in doing what he loves best--for the right reasons. It's the first day of autumn, which means it's time for the debonair Mr. Lepron and his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to pick vegetables and herbs so he can make his special soup. The meal is loved by all, sparking word-of-mouth buzz that brings throngs of animals and diverse people to his forest abode to partake. The business-minded hare soon decides to mass-market his confection, with "a big brick building where soup will be made around the clock." As his soup becomes more famous, his dreams, once calming and a contributing factor to the delicacy's tastiness, become frenzied and anxious, depicted as surreal nightmares, in stark contrast to the light, airy visions of the past. Customers no longer appreciate the soup as much. Realizing that he's changed, Mr. Lepron closes his business and retires to the forest, where he does what he enjoys most: spending time with family (and cooking soup now and again). Zoboli's lengthy, descriptive text, translated from Italian, and Di Giorgio's watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil art, together infuse Mr. Lepron with a deep humanity and construct a compelling, dreamy world that harkens back to the past in its tone and look but, with its nods to the all-consuming nature of capitalism, feels grounded in current realities, much like their previous collaboration,Professional Crocodile (2017). A clever, compassionate, and elegantly wrought reminder to do what makes you happy.(Picture book. 5-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
