What do You think about Soup (1974)?
The great young adult author Robert Newton Peck wrote this book about growing up in the Vermont countryside in the 1920s with his best friend Soup. There's even a one-room schoolhouse. Soup got his name by answering to his mother's call of Soup's On! Now there are over a dozen books in the Soup series now. In one wonderful scene, Peck and his friends are out playing football. He discusses inflating a football by licking the silver needle before putting it in the football. The taste of that needle on a brisk fall day is unforgettable. I remember playing football with my friends and the taste of that silver needle. Brilliant scene.
—Jimmy
This was a humorous historical fiction set in the 1930s in Vermont. Rob Peck (same name as the author) and Soup are best friends. They manage to constantly get into trouble. Soup and Rob are throwing apples. Soup dares Rob into whipping an apple at the church using a stick to fling it. They both throw an apple & break one of the churches windows. Soup and Rob make a pipe out of an acorn and daisy stems. They try to smoke corn silk. Rob's last thought before throwing up is, "I'm really smokin
—Krista
A friend recommended this book - and then a group of friends agreed - for my super picky reader in 6th grade. I grabbed this book and an Arctic adventure book for him and he wrinkled up his nose at Soup and chose the other book. But as it would be, my husband was gone that night and the boys asked me to read something to them and because my usually right friends so highly recommended this book, I picked up Soup to read aloud. The boys eyes were wide with "what would you do if we did that?" and I will admit I was a wee bit afraid of them trying some of the dare devil stunts in this book but we laughed a lot at it. The apple and the Baptist church? We were all laughing.And even in all that, there were some deep lessons learned here. Those "reading between the lines" lessons. I read more than half the book aloud to the boys that night. The next night with Daddy home, I read a chapter and even my husband told me to keep going. We finished the book as we sat at the dinner table. What a great collection of wild adventures that boys got themselves into and who knows how they survived. Also, it was funny to me to read this on the day that the boys got a strict talking to about bullying at school.Looking forward to reading more, and I will be sending this book on to my Dad because I think that it will remind him of parts of his childhood.
—Denise
