The Cabbage Soup Solution (Bccb Blue Ribbon Picture Book Awards (Awards))
PreSchool-Grade 1--An old woman and her two cats live quietly on a small farm where she is especially good at growing cabbages. Then one day, half of her crop mysteriously disappears. Elsie resolves to find the culprit, but, in the end, it is her pets that set things right, and expand her circle of friends in the process. The watercolor illustrations are a perfect accompaniment to the text. Kids will love being in on the joke when they see what destroyed the cabbages long before the woman does (rabbits). One particularly funny page shows Elsie's reaction to her decimated field: the stately text, "For a moment, she lost control," is set against a trio of pictures of Elsie in full tantrum mode. The evocative, muted tones set the mood as surely as the expressive faces on Oller's characters, both human and animal. An ideal addition to storytime, and a tale destined to be enjoyed by a wide audience.--Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, ColumbiaCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.