PINCH AND DASH MAKE SOUP

Daley’s easy-reading text about good friends learning to cooperate is served up just right with Yezerski’s illustrations in pen, ink and watercolor.

When lazy Pinch visits industrious Dash hoping for a good meal even though he has plenty of food in his refrigerator, he finds his friend stirring a pot of “skinny soup” with “bits of herbs floating in a lot of water.” Disappointed, Pinch asks his buddy if they can “fatten it up.” What ensues is a series of suggestions by Pinch to make the soup better. Of course, each ingredient he recommends is back in his kitchen. As he goes to and fro “all the way home,” the soup begins to thicken. To make it perfect, Pinch wants to add pepper and hot sauce. Dash is offended and has a tantrum—no spicy ingredients will be added. But when each of the characters is alone with the soup, the heat factor is soon doubled. The comic aftermath results in a friendly hug and some shared soup at the local Chat and Chew restaurant. Newly independent readers will enjoy the light humor while tackling the more difficult words repeated throughout the text (simmering, slurped, refrigerator). Although Pinch and Dash are rather nondescript animals, they portray the full range of emotions friends experience when they must ultimately compromise.