Soul Moon Soup

I loved this book so much. It was amazing writing and had a wonderful meaning. Phoebe Rose's story will keep you interested and thinking for a long time. Her story is touching and worth reading. I recomend this book, you wont want to put it down!!

Phoebe Rose dreams of becoming an artist when she grows up. However, the only person who encourages her is her father. One day he disappears, and Phoebe and her mother are forced to live out on the streets dragging a suitcase with all of their belongings from soup kitchen to soup kitchen looking for food, trying to find places to sleep, and trying to survive. Homelessness makes Phoebe so sad that she stops drawing and nobody notices. When Phoebe loses the suitcase at a bus station, her mother sends her to live with her grandmother for the summer at Full Moon Lake. That's when her new life begins.When Phoebe arrives at Full Moon Lake she's distrustful, but slowly adjusts to life in the country. She has a real home, good food and a sky full of stars for wishing. Best of all, there's Ruby, a new sisterlike friend who sparks Phoebe's imagination and encourages her love for drawing. When Phoebe's mother comes to Full Moon Lake with plans to return to the city with her, Phoebe isn't sure what she wants. Will she return to the city with her mother or will she stay with her grandmother?This book will make you feel glad that you have a home and don't have to live out on the streets. If I had been Phoebe, I would have stayed with my grandmother. If you like moving stories, you're going to like this book! --- Reviewed by Ashley

I didn't think of Pheobe as a homeless person. I thought of her as a spirit, a light so bright that even as it dimmed by the harshness of her life, could not be extinguished. I loved Pheobe's grandmother and the healing that took place on Full Moon Lake. I loved that Phoebe became the mama of her own self. And that she decided to give it one more try, "my mama and me, on our own in the city, a little stronger this time, we'll try."I think I'm going to go and read it all over again!

Soul Moon Soup is full of beautiful word pictures that capture the emotions of a young girl from a homeless family. Lindsay Johnson shows more than a superficial understanding of what it is like to be trapped at the bottom with no hope of getting out. Her characters all engage our sympathies even as we see their flaws.Written in verse, the book does not have the same dramatic arcs one would expect in a prose novel. As a poet Ms Johnson gives more attention to examining the fine details of her character's experience, but that is exactly where we find the wonderful images like swimming in soul moon soup.I highly recommend this book to sensitive readers and to those seeking to understand the humanity of the homeless.

Phoebe Rose gripped my heart and wouldn't let go until I got to the end of this moving book. Written in verse, the story zips by, pulling the reader into the world of a homeless girl. When she loses the precious suitcase with all of their posessions, and her mother makes good on her threat to "slap her back" to her mother's own place of upbringing, the dread builds. But Phoebe's grandmother and her neighbors end up being a small place of refuge. My students tend to find novels in verse to be especially accessible--and what a novel for helping young readers think about the real lives of people they may well pass on the streets every day.