This delightful recipe in poem form shows us all, young and old, how to make a heartwarming, tummy-filling bean soup

From gathering the beans, onions and garlic to letting them swim in the pot until the house smells wonderful and it's time for supper.

A young boy helps his mother prepare a soup the whole family will enjoy using ingredients from Mother Earth. Onions are "yellow as the dawn," beans are like stars spread out on the "sky of the table" and the water in the pot is "as deep as a little lake." While the soup is cooking, the boy buries the cooking scraps under a tree in the yard "so Mother Earth keeps on growing flavors."

Simply written, yet full of vivid imagery, Jorge Argueta's verse and Rafael Yockteng's animated illustrations make preparing bean soup a fun, almost magical experience. This book is a great family recipe/poem for those who already love bean soup -- it is a comfort food for many -- and for those who are looking for a delicious new healthy food.

Key Text Features
recipe
procedural text

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4
Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.5
Recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.4
Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.

Yockteng, Rafael

RAFAEL YOCKTENG has illustrated many highly acclaimed children's books, including Afterward, Everything was Different: A Tale From the Pleistocene; Wounded Falcons (two starred reviews and named a USBBY Outstanding International Book); Jimmy the Greatest! (six starred reviews); Two White Rabbits (three starred reviews); and Walk with Me (three starred reviews) by Jairo Buitrago. Rafael's books have been included on IBBY's Honor List, the Horn Book Fanfare and in the White Ravens Catalogue. He lives in Bogotá, Colombia.

Argueta, Jorge

JORGE ARGUETA, a Pipil Nahua Indian from El Salvador and Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, is a prize-winning author of more than twenty children's books. His book Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds won the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and was named to USBBY's Outstanding International Books List, ALA Notable Children's Books and the Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices. Jorge is the founder of the International Children's Poetry Festival Manyula and the Library of Dreams, a non-profit organization that promotes literacy in El Salvador. Jorge divides his time between San Francisco, California, and El Salvador.