Soup

*"Peck strings together a series of entertaining, autobiographical recollections centered around boyhood good times with his friend Soup. Soup's real name is Luther Wesley Vinson, but as Peck recalls, 'I called him Luther just once, which prompted Soup to break me of a very bad habit before it really got formed.' Each incident reawakens familiar images of the past as Peck tells of their throwing apples from sticks and inevitably breaking a window, rolling down a hill inside a barrel, or sneaking a smoke from cornsilk 'tobacco' in an acorn pipe. Neighborhood characters add color to the tellings. Janice Riker, the only person Soup is afraid of, is expert at captive and torture games; Aunt Carrie constantly wishes thrashings on Peck, but we are treated to her comic downfall as a trussed-up captive in a downpour. Charles Gehm's freshly evocative pencil sketches perfectly capture, and even intensify the moods of the vignettes. Adults will relish this look at a misty past; children will do the same, especially those who like A Day No Pigs Would Die".