Soup Book

The great young adult author Robert Newton Peck wrote this book about growing up in the Vermont countryside in the 1920s with his best friend Soup. There's even a one-room schoolhouse. Soup got his name by answering to his mother's call of Soup's On! Now there are over a dozen books in the Soup series now.

In one wonderful scene, Peck and his friends are out playing football. He discusses inflating a football by licking the silver needle before putting it in the football. The taste of that needle on a brisk fall day is unforgettable. I remember playing football with my friends and the taste of that silver needle. Brilliant scene.