Growing Vegetable Soup

After living in cities for many years, this summer marks the first time my family will have a chance to grow a vegetable garden of our own.

I am Excited. Super excited. I have a long list of vegetables I’d love to grow, even though I know in my heart of hearts that we will not have the space for, say, four different varieties of tomatoes, plus three types of melons, not to mention summer and winter squash.

When I saw Growing Vegetable Soup at the library, I thought, “Perfect.” I want Annabel to be just as excited about the possibility of growing food at home as I am. And though Leo is too young to fully grasp the concept of the book, he will certainly reap the benefits of homegrown goodness being made in purees and mashes for his small self. I know he likes Lois Ehlert’s pictures.

And who couldn’t? They’re bright and punchy, ripe and delicious. The entire book is one beautifully vivid ode to the garden grown by a father and his child. For the purpose of making vegetable soup, of course. The reader is taken through the entire cycle of a plant’s life, from seed to soup.

I love that an actual recipe for vegetable soup appears on the back flap. And that Ehlert included a worm on her broccoli plant. And that her sliced carrot features a pale core.

We own Ehlert’s Eating the Alphabet, which I love, and we have read other stories from her prolific body of work. Her illustration style is clean and bright, appealing to young eyes drawn bold, graphic shapes. Growing Vegetable Soup is as informative as it is fun- worms, weeds, and all. Just the way it is outside of a book.

Now to try out that vegetable soup recipe…