Delicious! a pumpkin soup story by Helen Cooper - review

Delicious! a pumpkin soup story by Helen Cooper
Picky eater Duck won't even try the fish soup, mushroom soup, and beet soup concocted by his friends Squirrel and Cat - he will only eat pumpkin soup, which is orange. So his friends make squash-and-carrot soup, which is orange, and basically trick him into eating it, which he does, and loves it.

The fine and fanciful illustrations in this book nearly conquer my uneasiness about the age-old ploy of disguising food as something palatable to a child so that he or she will try it. I tried that once with my older boy, telling him an orange piece of canteloupe was cheese, and it totally backfired. He didn't like the canteloupe, and for a while he was suspicious of all actual cheese. I felt pretty bad about eroding my child's trust in me that way. He still doesn't like canteloupe. Plus my friend Sarah, who has (professional) experience with eating disorders, told me that it's common to find that habitual overeaters were conned like this as children.

Still! Cute illustrations!