Stone Soup a personalized book with your child as the hero

One evening, as the sun sank low behind the hills, a young traveller came walking down the road to a quiet village. The traveller's boots were dusty, the canvas satchel hung light and nearly empty, and in one hand was a wooden bowl with nothing in it at all.

The traveller knocked at the first cottage. A woman opened the top half of her door and looked out. "I am sorry," she said, "but it has been a thin year. We have hardly enough for ourselves." She smiled a little sadly and closed the door.

At the second cottage, a man shook his head. At the third, a curtain twitched and nobody came at all. The village had been hungry before, and it had learned to keep its cupboards shut.

The traveller did not argue. Instead, the traveller walked to the stone well in the middle of the village and sat down on its edge to think. Then, looking about, the traveller spotted a smooth grey stone by the well's foot. It was round and clean, and it fit perfectly in one palm. The traveller rinsed it in the bucket and held it up to the light. "This will do very nicely," the traveller said.

A few villagers had begun to peek out of their windows. The traveller walked back to the woman's cottage and knocked again. "Excuse me," the traveller said politely. "I am not asking for food. I wonder if I might borrow a big pot and a little water. I would like to make stone soup, and there will be plenty to share."

"Stone soup?" said the woman. She had never heard of such a thing, and curiosity is a hard thing to keep behind a door. She fetched an iron pot, and a tall neighbour came out to help carry it. He built a small fire in the square, and he promised to keep it steady and safe.

The traveller filled the pot with cold water from the well. Then, with great care, the traveller set the clean smooth stone into the water. It sank with a soft plink. The fire crackled, and the water began to warm.

By now a small crowd had gathered. Children stood on tiptoe. Old neighbours leaned on their sticks. The traveller took a spoon, tasted the water, and nodded thoughtfully. "Mmm. It is going to be a good soup. Although," the traveller added, "a carrot would make it especially good."

The woman hesitated. Then she said, "I might have one carrot," and she hurried home. She returned with a bright orange carrot, which the traveller thanked her for and dropped into the pot.

After that, things began to change. "If there are carrots," said a farmer, "then potatoes would not be out of place." A baker's wife thought a few onions might help. A boy ran off and came back with a bowl of beans. Someone brought salt, and someone else brought a little barley and a sprig of herbs. Each neighbour set a gift beside the shared table, and the traveller thanked each of them by name.

The tall neighbour stirred the pot with a long wooden spoon, and steam rose in golden curls above the fire. The smell drifted over the rooftops and down the lanes, and even the shy ones came out to see.

While the soup bubbled, the traveller set a long table in the square. Neighbours carried benches. The baker brought warm loaves, and the children lined up bowls, one for every person and a few extra for anyone who might wander by.

At last the traveller tasted the soup once more. "I think," the traveller said, "it is ready. Would you help me with the stone?" The tall neighbour held the pot steady, and together they lifted the clean, smooth stone out with a ladle. It dripped in the firelight. The traveller set it on a plate beside the pot. "The stone has done its work," the traveller said with a smile. "It reminded us to ask."

Then the ladle went round, and every bowl filled with thick, steaming vegetable soup, full of carrots, potatoes, onions and beans. Nobody ate the stone, of course. The real feast was the one they had made together.

That night the whole village sat down side by side. The soup was warm, the bread was soft, and people who had barely nodded to each other for months were passing salt and sharing jokes. Somebody fetched a fiddle, and somebody else found a lantern.

"Who would have thought," said the woman, wiping her eyes with laughter, "that we had so much, all along?"

The traveller looked down the long table at the glowing faces and felt very full, in more ways than one. In the morning the traveller would walk on down the road. But the stone stayed by the well, and the village never forgot how to share a pot of soup.