Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen - Hardcover

Grade 1-3-- If good intentions made great picture books, this would be a winner. A young boy accompanies his after-school companion, Uncle Willie, to a city soup kitchen where Willie works daily. In a "bed-to-bed" manner of storytelling, readers are informed of the operation of the soup kitchen as the unnamed boy assumes the role of helper and narrator. There are some discrepancies in the text. How could the steaming soup pots on the stove "make the whole place smell delicious" before any of the ingredients have been added? If the soup kitchen is "small and bright," how does it hold 125 people? These inconsistencies, however, are not so much of a drawback as the didactic tone. The competent pictures in soft pastels are sufficient to tell much of the story, but the long, repetitive text makes this book difficult to use as a read-aloud for story hours. Although this seems to be an accurate picture of a topic that is certainly of current concern, the format suggests a younger audience than the one for whom the subject matter would be most interesting and relevant. --Martha Rosen, Edgewood School, Scarsdale, NY
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.