Brown, M. (1947). Stone soup.  New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 

Stone Soup is an example of a realistic folktale. It is a realistic folktale because the characters, plot, and setting could really happen. There is no magic in the story, and nothing is over exaggerated. In the story, three french soldiers are hungry and looking for food. They come to a village full of greedy townspeople and they find a way to outsmart them into letting them have food.

Common to traditional literature, the number 3 is a motif that surfaces again in this story. There are THREE soldiers in the story, they visit THREE houses asking for food, and they ask for THREE round smooth stones for their soup. This is a characteristic that places this story in the folktale genre.

The setting of this story is unimportant and very vague. The first page describes the setting as "a strange country". In this book, as well as traditional literature in general, backdrop setting are commonly used. The setting is not integral to the story or the plot.

I find the theme to this book a bit confusing. One one end, it teaches that people should not be greedy, like the townspeople were being, denying the soldiers of their food. On the other hand, it teaches that people who are greedy should be tricked and lied to in order to "steal" their food from them. I am not sure that the moral of this story teaches a good lesson to children.

 Children may enjoy this book because it is similar to other children's books they may have read. I read a version of Stone Soup as a child that was similar in the way the soup was made, but did not involve soldiers or townspeople. I think they would find it interesting to compare the similarities and differences between the two texts.

Big Question:
What lesson does the book Stone Soup teach you? Do you think what the solders did was right or wrong? Explain why.

-Haley