Cactus Soup

Kimmel, E. A., & Huling, P. (2004). Cactus soup. New York: Marshall Cavendish.  ISBN 0-7614-5155-2

Plot Summary:

This version of “Stone Soup” is set in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. Soldiers are marching into town that prepared for their arrival
by having its townspeople hiding all of their food, wearing old tattered clothes and dirt on their faces. They had been taken advantage by other soldiers and had to pretend to be poor to not have to feed any others. The captain acknowledged their lack of resources and asked for only water and a cactus thorn to make a soup. Slowly, the townspeople get tricked into adding other ingredients to

make a more flavorful soup. Before long, the whole town is eating a delicious soup with sides and dancing to music.   

Analysis:

The way that Kimmel uses the townspeople being tricked into sharing the food and resources that they do have allows readers to get a lesson

of cooperation and generosity, even in times of hardship and scarcity.  The individual townspeople may not have had enough food to

feed everyone, but as a town they, collectively, were able to provide for everyone without anyone being left out.  Kimmel’s use of

Spanish words within the story is a great way to have readers use context clues to know what the words are. Also, the words are a

great way to connect with any ELL’s and may peak their interest.  Huling is great at illustrating the story using watercolors. I noticed

how the steam rising from the soup pot plays an important part of helping convince the townspeople to bring forth more ingredients.

The exaggerated characters and their  facial expressions make the book a bit comical without taking away the realness of the characters or situation.

Review Excerpts:

Review on Publisher’s Weekly 11/08/2004 “By story's end, the soldiers' leader has used reverse psychology to coax genuinely

tasty foodstuffs out of the villagers ("Too bad you don't have onions. Cactus soup always tastes better with onions. But why ask for what you

don't have?"), and teaches everyone a delicious and festive lesson about sharing and community.”

Review on Kirkus 09/01/2004 "Huling’s illustrations, a bit off-putting because of the extreme caricatures of the oversized sombreros are, however, well-suited to the exaggeration of the smoothly told tale."

Connections:

*Would be a great way to introduce the Mexican Revolution to a class.

*Context Clues would a good lesson to tie with this book and have readers use context clues to know what the Spanish words mean

and could also use the illustrations as examples of text to know what the characters in the story are thinking.

*Art Connection-illustrations could be used to show how a “thing” like the steam that is never mentioned in text in the story

could play an important part in the illustrations.