Daniela Sosa’s 2025 picture book Giant Parsnip Soup is pleasantly surprising and usefully sneaky.
The pleasure and surprise start on the first two-page spread, when two friends find a giant parsnip. It is big enough that they consider making it a car, a slide, and a rocket–and the surprise is first that the parsnip is so amazingly big, second that the kids just accept it, and third, that the book does not explain it. The giant parsnip just is. Deal with it.
The kids deal with it by deciding to make giant parsnip soup. The rest of the book focuses on the process of making that soup, which starts with hauling the parsnip using a wagon, rope, and a bike, and ends with the soup made and eaten, and the kids pleasantly fully and exhausted (and a fair mess left behind).
Along the way–and here’s the sneaky part–the kids gather what they need to make the soup, and then assemble it. As they do, the book morphs into a counting book: they start with “one giant parsnip,” then add “two sacks of potatoes,” and so on. Each step in the soup production line is illustrated with bright, gentle images, which combine with the book’s idea and words to make the whole book quite welcoming.
After the story ends, there’s a two-page counting spread, again counting from one to ten, and then two pages giving a recipe for parsnip soup. The final counting pages introduce the only note in the book that didn’t ring quite right: readers again start with one parsnip, but from two on, the items shown are different from those discussed in the story–and actually don’t align. (For example, the story lists “two sacks of potatoes,” but shows them being moved on one wheelbarrow and one toy train…but the counting pages show two wheelbarrows.)
Otherwise, a good book. Wonder and learning together.
