What if you found a giraffe in your soup, an alligator in your entreé, an elephant on the table, or even an ostrich in your dish?

There is something really fun about reading a debut picture book from an author-illustrator and Ross Burach’s first book There’s a Giraffe in My Soup certainly had my girls and I giggling!  While Bob was a Stay at Home Dad to Brooke for the first four years of her life, she became an expert at eating out in restaurants.  It was something they would do together every week and she became a seasoned pro by age three.  Bob and I both worked in restaurants when we were climbing up the work ladder, so we totally understand and do not want to be a rude customer and are always careful to not leave the table very messy and to give a good tip.  But, in the event things go the way at a restaurant as they do in this book, I can understand the reason behind sending back a meal, a normal faux pas in our life!

In There’s a Giraffe in My Soup, the young boy, who seems to be dining out on his own, is getting some very peculiar orders.  As each meal is brought in with great confidence by the waiter, big and sometimes SCARY animals are popping out from under the lid.  As the waiter gets more and more frustrated at the boy’s requests to get a meal that does not include a zoo animal, the mystery mix-up is finally solved.  Unfortunately, that means he needs to go elsewhere to get a bite to eat!  This book is jam-packed with sweet illustrations and includes all sorts of animal puns that will get your kids laughing.  It also gave us a great opportunity to go over restaurant etiquette again in our house.  Definitely a win-win book!

About the Author/Illustrator: Ross Burach is an author and illustrator with a degree in fine arts from the University of Massachusetts. Since graduation, Ross has focused on designing characters and backgrounds for animation studios within children’s media. He has always loved combining words and pictures to create humor and has since found the perfect blend for a career in children’s books.  Ross currently lives with his wife in a tiny apartment in a humongous city called New York. He hopes to one day have a pet giraffe. There’s a Giraffe in My Soup is his first book.  Visit him at www.rossburach.com.