Carrot Soup

reviewed on www.vegbooks.org
http://vegbooks.org/index.php/2010/06/16/carrot-soup/

Carrot Soup is a tasty little tale about a rabbit who grows an assortment of carrots for his favorite meal: carrot soup. Rabbit does all the familiar farm labor of hoeing, planting, watering, and waiting… and waiting… and waiting… until it is finally harvest time. But when he goes to pull the carrots, he can’t find them anywhere! So he begins interrogating his friends one by one, who suggest a different friend to question. All of his friends deny or avoid answering his questions about his carrots, except for pig, who can’t be found anywhere. Finally, rabbit gives up and despondently returns home only to discover what really happened to all his show more carrots!

John Segal creates a funny, yummy mystery full of visual clues for children. The animal characters are illustrated with funny and expressive faces in watercolor and ink. The background scenes as rabbit interrogates individuals depict other animals carting off barrels and wagons of carrots. The pictures hint at the answers to rabbit’s mystery, but he is quite oblivious to all except his immediate surroundings and current suspect.

Besides the clever visual humor, I especially enjoyed the page to identify a variety of different types of carrots as well as a carrot soup recipe in the back. Unfortunately the soup recipe calls for chicken broth and butter but those could easily be substituted by the reader. Besides the recipe, Carrot Soup is otherwise a veg-friendly book.

Ages 3-8. show less

Rabbit is dismayed when his carrot fields are empty just when he's ready to make carrot soup. He asks the other animals but they each blame another. Kids will enjoy "solving" the mystery by seeing what's going on in the background of the illustrations.

There's something a little creepy about that rabbit, and the writing is eh. I *do* like the way you can see what's really going on if you pay attention to the background, but it isn't enough to make me like the book as a whole.

All Rabbit wanted to do was make some carrot soup with the carrots he grew in his garden. When he goes to pick them, they are all gone! Rabbit asks all his friends but none of them seem to know. When Rabbit gets home, he finds out all of his friends had told a white lie to surprise him with a party with tons of carrot soup.

This book was really cute and had a great message about friendship.

This book is great. I wish I would have found it when I was teaching a plant unit to kindergarteners. It shows the process of planting seeds. I also like how all rabbits friends planned a surprise party for rabbit. It would be good to talk about how maybe the idea of the party was good, but picking someone elses plants isn't a good idea. Not without that person knowing about it, because like rabbit, the person could get very sad and angry that their plants were taken. I also love the carrot soup recipes in the back, it would be fun to read this book and then offer carrot soup to your students, or have them help prepare it!

Simple story of a rabbit planting his garden of carrots and they disappear when he comes to get them. His friends play a part in the surprise ending. Alexander loved this book and it was one of the first books he memorized, that makes it special for us.

It's the start of Spring and rabbit can't wait to start growing carrots. It shows how he planted the seeds (and waited and waited) but then there are no carrots. His friends had taken the carrots for Rabbit's surprise party.

Can be used with Creepy Carrots or any other book about gardens, vegetables or Spring.
Have kids pay attention to the details to see Rabbit's friends take the carrots and get ready for the party.
Lots of ! and ? make it an interesting read aloud to demonstrate expression and fluency.