Martha, the dog who learned to talk thanks to alphabet soup, has suddenly developed a communication problem. It seems the president of Granny's Soup Company decided to increase profits by reducing the number of letters in her alphabet soup from 26 to 13 and this has severely limited Martha's ability to pronounce words. Can Martha talk her way out of this one? Like its predecessors, Martha Speaks (Houghton, 1992 ) and Martha Calling (Houghton, 1994), this draws its humor from clever plotting, droll illustrations, and the overall absurdity of the situation. (Ages 4-7)

Something's wrong! Martha the talking dog has eaten her daily bowl of alphabet soup. But when she opens her mouth to speak, strange sounds come out instead of words. What's happening? As Martha contemplates a future without words, she wonders if she can really go back to being just a dog. Fortunately, Martha's nose still works, and she follows it to the source of the mystery. Full color.