Customer Reviews

The Real Story of Stone Soup

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I use folk tales with my 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade English Language Learners. One of our projects is to read all the versions of STONE SOUP to examine the perspectives of the characters and the message(s) of the various tales. My students always love Pete Seeger's retelling of the tale: Some Friends to Feed (with its CD of Pete's own retelling and a song to sing about Friends to Feed.) They love the tale for Pete's voice, his song, and because the townspeople are hungry...but they are NOT STINGY. This is the best version for the youngest children, too. The version my students always love the best, however, is The "Real" Story of Stone Soup by Ying Chang Compestine. It is a sophisticated story filled with irony and intellectually the most challenging of all versions. It is also, by far, the funniest. Homeschooling mom has problems with the bad language used by the first person narrator. Her problem, I think, might have more to do with the age of her children: it is not really intended to be comprehensible by very young children. The world experience, the subtlety of human relationships, and the complexity of literary device makes it the most challenging and the most fun of all Stone Soups, for age 9 and up (to and including adults). I had to write this review because Amazon's one-star ranking is unfair to the book and might dissuade teachers and older students from experiencing a fine book offering a rigorous academic experience. Go for it! (Especially if your students are Chinese, as mine are. It's a joy!)

I don't know why anyone would talk smack about a book as good as this. My 5th grade class loved it! I guess there are some words that really uptight people would dislike, like "stupid" but it really didn't affect us. I hate to break it to the world but you hear a lot worse words in public schools. I found the way the boys get back at the lazy fisherman is really original and hilarious. The artwork is awesome as well. This book is one of my favorites, and I'd reccommend it to anyone!

This book is a great example of traditional fantasy. It is a combination of an English folktale and a Chinese legend. I am a teacher so I can definitely see ways that I would use this book in the classroom. It is an enjoyable story about boys who trick their uncle into thinking that they can create soup from rocks. Anyone who loves "The Emperor's New Clothes" would love this story! The illustrations are great and the story is fun!

This book could have been great but the author ruined it with her very poor language. Their are a lot of words in this book that I don't want my children to hear or use with others. Their is a lot of insults in this book, stupid, lazy, troublesome, stupid potatoe head, those are just a few. I understand that the author was trying to be funny and sarcastic in this book but for young children they don't understand that. I would not recommend this book.