HAMMER SOUP

The Schuberts dish up a nourishing broth, using “Stone Soup” and “Grasshopper and the Ants” as main ingredients. Hardworking, pest-hating Kate is infuriated when a genial giant, Bruce, cobbles together a ramshackle cabin next door—and even more so at his lackadaisical way with putting off till tomorrow what, in her view, should be done right now. When an ensuing winter storm blows his shack away, she reluctantly invites him into her cozy home—but refuses to feed him from her industriously gathered stores, until he proposes making soup from his small hammer. All he needs is a pot. . . . Children will enjoy contrasting the mild-mannered giant with his diminutive, type-A neighbor, as well as their respective homes—hers wonderfully tidy, with an adjacent, thoroughly weeded garden strewn with warning signs: his, thrown together from junk and mismatched parts—both rendered with engagingly exact detail in the pictures. By the end, Kate has lightened up, Bruce has shown at least a sign of changing his ways, and the two, along with their respective pets, are positively radiating good fellowship. Beautiful soup. (Picture book. 6-8)