By Aubrey Davis. Illustrated by Dusan Petricic.
Kids Can Press.
A fresh version of a familiar folk tale. Sometimes it is called stone soup and involves a wandering soldier. In this version, a beggar visits the synagogue in a miserable village, someplace in Eastern Europe, sometime in the grim past. The clever beggar persuades the townspeople to offer ingredients that make his button soup into a delicious borscht, and making the soup brings social life back to the community. The illustrations in this version are particularly sophisticated.