Good soups
are the sustenance of childhood. They are to lunch what toast and jam are to breakfast--nursery food, some people call them. They warm us when we're cold, fill us up when we're hungry and soothe our scratchy throats. They can even turn around a day gone wrong--after a rotten time on the playground, say, or, later in life, a rotten time at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

Even the reluctant soup eater can be wooed by soup's fun side. You wouldn't consider tossing alphabet letters into a casserole or sprinkling stars onto baked chicken. Even a dumpling is most comfortable in soup. You can plop it on the top, then wait as, under a cover of darkness, it blows up into a cloud. Kids are hard pressed to fight among themselves when there are dumplings in the soup.

Maybe that's why soup--like porridge or tea with milk--regularly saves the day (or at least vastly improves it) in children's stories. In some, like Betsy Everitt's MEAN SOUP (Harcourt, Brace & Co.), a pot of soup becomes the perfect elixir for a little boy's frustrations. In others, like the classic folktale STONE SOUP (Simon & Schuster Children's), a broth made from stones and water grows into a grand feast for a whole village. More often than not, when soup is simmered or served, a certain magic permeates the air.

This holds true even outside of storybooks--and in the kitchen. Soup's forgiving nature graciously allows an extra touch of this and fewer of that to be added, so it is easy to include even very young kids in the making of soup. If Sarah is having a fine time peeling carrots, then more carrots may be peeled and thrown into the pot. If Edward has picked a dozen tomatoes, soup will use them up. There are only a few irreparable mistakes you can make (cooking pasta into papier-mâché paste leaps to mind), but mostly, soup recipes are kind.

Along the side of this screen, you'll find a sampling of our favorites--soups that yield both ease and amusement. Some have fun things in them (like stars or hot dogs), and some have fun things on them (such as smiley faces). Others are bright purple or taste like peanut butter, or are just plain enjoyable for a kid to make. None comes with magic ingredients. But then again, as the stories suggest, when you mix up soup and put it in a pot to simmer, there's likely to be a happy ending.

Lynne Bertrand is Contributing Editor and Ann Hallock is Executive Editor at FAMILYFUN.