5th April International Soup Day

My friend at Momotimetoread talked about a new nonfiction book Soup's On on her blog and then Provo Library Children's Book blog talked about all the versions of Stone Soup so last week we put out some soup books in a small display. I haven't written about soup since 2012 when there was no official Soup Day, but now I know it is on 5th April. It is not cold enough in Australia for soup in April, but this last week the weather has been a bit chillier. Elsewhere in the library we have a display of books about knitting, so it is quite fitting to have another winter activity, soup making too.

It is difficult to list all the types of soup invented by mankind during this time. Fans of this dish will certainly name French bouillabaisse, Spanish gazpacho, Georgian kharcho, Bulgarian tarator, Russian cabbage soup, holodnik, uhu, and of course, the unsurpassed Ukrainian borscht. Particularly sophisticated connoisseurs mention Japanese ramen and Chinese danhutan. Light or saturated, simple in preparation or complicated, meat or vegetarian, from potatoes, noodles, rice, or seaweed: they all have contributed to the noble cause of catering and are worthy of being devoted a separate day, which was done. International Soup Day is celebrated annually on April 5. Did you know that Poland is the country that consumes the most soup?

There are more picture books about soup than you would have thought. See this Pinterest. Here's some of the newest:

10th July Teddy Bears' Picnic Day and more soup.

Some sites say that today is Teddy Bears' Picnic Day. I have written about teddy bears before and haven't come across any new books that I feel compelled to write about. However this day exists because of the song The Teddy Bears Picnic. This song started life as a tune, just the music written in 1907 by American John Bratton. Then in 1907, Irish lyricist Jimmy Kennedy was asked to write lyrics for the tune for a children's pantomime that was planned for a performance in London. The song has appeared in picture book format over the years. Michael Hague's version which is still in print is probably the best known.

Yesterday I chanced upon another soup book while browsing in a book shop on my way home from the ALEA conference. It is called Soup For One and is written and illustrated by Ethan Long, someone whose work I am not familiar with. However this book is fun and I can see myself reading it with my preschool classes because it has plenty of opportunity for them to join in. It has counting. It has rhyme and onomatopoeia. All of this and humour!

4th July Soup Day

I don't think such a day exists but it has been very cold here in Sydney the last few days and it feels like soup weather so it should exist. A group of teacher friends and I had a soup lunch. It was wonderful exchanging teacher stories over warm soup, crusty bread, cake and coffee. It made me think of winter displays for the library and while I always do snow and winter sports I got to thinking was there enough books to do a soup display?

And there is! There are several different versions of Stone Soup of course, but as well there was:

1. Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper

2. Making Minestrone by Stella Blackstone and Nan Brooks

3. Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert

4. Carrot Soup by John Segal

5. Watch Out For Chicken Feet in Your Soup by Tomie dePaola

6. Alphabet Soup by Kate Banks and Peter Sis

7. Everybody Serves Soup by Norah Dooley and Peter J. Thornton

Many of these have soup recipes at the back of the story and while looking for pictures I learned there is in fact a book called Soup Day by Melissa Iwai which also sounds ideal for my clientele, so I need to add it to my shopping list.