Welcome to the Stone Soup Honor Roll! We receive hundreds of submissions every month by kids from around the world. Unfortunately, we can’t publish all the great work we receive. So we created the Stone Soup Honor Roll. We commend all of these talented writers and artists and encourage them to keep creating. – The Editors Scroll down to see all the names (alphabetical by section), including book reviewers and artists. ART Charlene Cho, 10 Kate Fullem, 9 Yanling Lin, 12 Patrick Nguyen, 7 POEMS Ethan Liu, 10 Eliana Ojeda, 8 Vatsla Pandey, 12 Leucine Peck, 8 Brook Taintor, 11 FICTION Austin Loewy, 12 Maya Raffaele, 12
Highlight from Stonesoup.com
From the Book Club An update from the thirty-fifth meeting on the Stone Soup Book Club for Writers This month we discussed A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat, a suspenseful and moving novel set in a magical version of Thailand. The book follows Pong, who is born in Namwon Prison because his mom was imprisoned for stealing. He escapes the prison and hides in a monastery, where he is guided spiritually by the wise Father Cham. But, he’s still in danger! Nok, the daughter of the warden of Namwon Prison, is determined to capture Pong and bring him to justice, hoping that doing so will help her gain glory and acceptance. Pong flees Nok back to Chattana, a beautiful but very crowded and unequal city, which floats on canals and is lit by colorful magical lights, all controlled by the Governor. There, he reunites with his old best friend from prison, Somkit, and gets involved in a community made up of the city’s poorest people, who are organizing to make their city a fairer place. Pong has to decide whether to join in on the organizing or whether he should flee Chattana (and Nok, who is still hunting him down), while he can still escape. This book had so much drama and suspense, so many larger-than-life characters, and so many interesting and important themes to talk about. Students joined us from all over the country, hailing from different states, and in different grades of school. We had a lively discussion. Everyone agreed that they enjoyed the book, and talked about their different favorite characters. Some people loved Pong for his fierce sense of justice; others loved Ampai for her courageous organizing. Some loved Father Cham for his gentle wisdom, and one person’s favorite character was Nok, who has such impressive fighting skills and changes so much over the course of the book. Next we got into a discussion about the major themes of the book: justice, law, right, wrong, prison, punishment. We talked about the unfair way that children are punished for their parents’ crimes in Chattana, and that prison tattoos prevent people from finding work, even after they have served their sentences. We discussed different proverbs that are said in the society in the novel, such as “Light only shines on the worthy,” and “The tree drops its fruit straight down,” and how we disagreed with these proverbs. One student mentioned that although it would be very nice if good people always had good things happen to them, and vice versa, this is not how the world works, and so it is not fair to say that if someone is poor or otherwise struggling, it must be because they are a bad person. You can read the rest of the report at https://stonesoup.com/stone-soup-book-club-2/ About the Stone Soup Book Club The Stone Soup Book Club is open to all Stone Soup readers ages 9–13. We started the book club for our readers during the COVID-19-related school closures, and it has been running ever since—currently once a month, usually on the last Saturday of the month (depending on holidays). You can find out more, including how to sign up, here: https://stonesoup.com/stone-soup-writing-and-art-classes/
Power and Beauty
Watercolor on paper
Carrots
Watercolor
Wish Upon
Red Galaxy Up, up, up. Into the deep, dark sky. The moon is up there, Almost full, Not quite. I ignore it. Tonight I’m looking for something else. I rest my chin on the windowsill, Searching. There! My gaze lands on a single bright light. A star. Beautiful and pure. I smile. I stare at it, and close my eyes. Please, please, please, I whisper. I make my wish, Blowing it out through the open window. I open my eyes again. But my star is gone. I search, frantic. It has disappeared, Taking my wish with it. Or . . . There! I find it and exhale. But then it blinks. Realization sets over me, Like the winter sun over the countryside. It’s an airplane. And it will carry my wish across the world.
Slip, Crash, Boom
A fun backyard play session with friends takes a turn when Eloïse falls off the monkey bars This story is dedicated to my Nana for helping me throughout this. “Go! Go! Go!” my friend Addie and I shouted. Olivia, my neighbor, was showing us how fast she could run, zipping around my backyard, sprinting past the flowerbeds and back like a cheetah, her brown hair swaying as she picked up speed, moving in a blur. “Your turn!” Olivia gasped in between two heavy breaths when she finished. What could I do? A somersault? No! Maybe a cartwheel. Oh! Just then an idea popped into my head: I should do the monkey bars as fast as I could. I climbed up the ladder then paused, positioning myself as if I were a famous actor making an entrance on stage, and grabbed the first bar as fast as I could, focusing on speed. Quicker! Quicker! my mind screamed. My eyes homed in on the treehouse door. “Almost there!” I mumbled through my gritted teeth. I was on the second-to-last bar when my hand reached out, brushed the last metal bar, and—slip, crash, boom! I sailed through the air as fear took root in my head. I landed on a mound of bark chips with a soft thump. For a split second, my friends just stared at me and I stared at them. Then, burning pain erupted from my arm, blurring my mind, making me barely hear their rapid talking. I couldn’t think. All I could do was cry. Warm tears damped my cheeks. I stayed there paralyzed for a minute or two. “Eloïse, are you okay? Here, I think you should go see your grandma,” Olivia said with a hint of worry in her voice. I reached out for her to help me up, but that just sent another jolt of pain down my arm. Addie managed to help me up the porch stairs to the back door. My grandmother, Nana, was there in three seconds with an ice pack. “Honey, what happened?” she cried while escorting me to the kitchen. Since I didn’t answer, she poured me a glass of water. It tasted cool going down my throat but didn’t help the continuous pain up my arm. After my friends finished explaining what happened, my Nana asked me to bend my arm. I tried, but it was too much. “Ow!” I cried. “Maybe you should go take a nap, sweetie,” my Nana said, not sure what to do. So, I went downstairs and went to bed. The Eye in the Dark I woke up sweating. My arm still hurt. I must have slept a long time because my mom was back from work and was waiting for me on the couch. “You look pale. Can I see your arm?” she asked in a soothing voice. Since I couldn’t stretch my arm, I sat next to her and took a deep breath, slowly, steadily bending my elbow and gritting my teeth, making my eyes burn. After reflecting a minute, my mom helped me up and told me that we were going to the hospital. In the car, I could tell my mom was worried from the way she was frowning. “Mom, what’s going to happen?” I asked, imagining my arm falling off. “Well, you’ll probably get an X-ray to know if your arm is actually fractured. Then, if it is, you will get a cast and wear it for a few weeks.” My mind raced. WHAT! I won’t be able to do anything fun! Not a cast! I thought to myself. After taking three deep breaths to clear my head, I said, “Okay” and pretended everything was fine. Once we got to the hospital, which did not look as intimidating as I thought it would, I relaxed a little. A kind man led us to a room that looked nice and cheery. What if a cast wasn’t that bad of an idea after all? Besides, it was only going to be for a month. Finally, just then, the word that I said to my mom in the car became true: “okay”—this was going to be okay. Something inside of me clicked. I don’t know what did it, but I wasn’t scared anymore because I knew this was the right thing for my arm.
Evergreen
The Great Underneath Trees gain new fay-looking Cloaks when autumn comes As if they were on fire The trees’ beauty decorates the forest Envy evergreens They don’t know the Uncomfortable burden of beauty.
The Great Underneath
iPhone 11 Pro
Red Galaxy
Chalk pastels
Escape from Manzular
Pearl dreams of escaping Manzular, a once-peaceful world controlled by an evil witch Walking through our kingdom at night is usually dangerous, but now it is dangerous times four hundred. It has been a long time since a witch named Madame Lazora took over our peaceful kingdom with an army of fire at her side. Madame Lazora is kind of like a fairytale witch, but way more powerful. I don’t know how she became that powerful, but I have a couple theories. I probably should introduce myself. My name is Pearl. I’m fifteen, and I don’t want to brag, but I’m probably the world’s biggest brainiac. And I live in a world that is said to have magic, but not the magic that you’re born with and you can do cool spells with when you’re a baby (but that would be great). It’s more like no one has been able to harness the magic and use it as their own—magic’s just always been there. We know it through the ancient texts written by our founders. No one in our history has ever been known to harness the magic. Until Madame Lazora. * * * It was a beautifully boring day the day that Madame Lazora came to take over the kingdom. I was just coming home from school like normal. My mom was home but about to leave for her next shift at work as normal. “Hey, Mom,” I said. “Hello, Pearl. How was school?” “Great! We got our report card!” “Let me guess—you got all A’s?” “That’s right!” I exclaimed, hoping to get her more into a conversation, but, like normal, it was a disappointment. “That’s cool! Now I’ve got to go to work. Bye, darling.” This is how our normal conversations go; there is a hi, then something about my school, and then she says bye and then she’s gone. Poof—just like magic. So, like normal, I went up to my room (well, the attic—our house is very small) to start on my homework, and that was when the first attack happened. Then it became a whole battle which lasted for three whole years. Then we lost. The king was dead and so was all of the royal family—the queen, the five princes and the three princesses. And that is how our kingdom came under the rule of Madame Lazora. Now her flag waves in the castle and there is only one ruler—her. I’ve got a feeling that the idea for the “citizens’” new house design came from our house, because soon all the houses magically became very similar to our house, one story with an attic and two rooms. Madame Lazora believes that everyone benefits from being the same. But I really felt bad for the families that had lots of children. After all, the reason that my mom and I have such a small house is that there are only the two of us. No dad, no brothers or sisters. Just me and Mom. I go to the school that Madame Lazora makes us go to, where we learn her curriculum and what she expects us to learn. She wants us to think that her kingdom is the best and perfect so we never think of leaving, so we believe this is where our life is meant to be. I think I am the first to think of seeing past the kingdom walls. Well, maybe not. A month ago two kids disappeared from school—Mary and Matthew Johnson. Some people say that they escaped. No one knows if that’s actually true. But it got me wondering if escape was possible. “Storytime’s over,” as my father would have said. “Get your head out of the past, and get control over the present.” So that’s what I’m doing, silently walking through the kingdom, not thinking about the past, trying to think about my future. The bleak weather doesn’t help my mood. The weather never changes. It is always what Madame Lazora likes: black clouds covering the whole sky so that you can’t tell what time of day it is. The ground is so dry that there is no soil fertile enough to harvest crops. You can see the cracks in the ground. As I walk down the shadowy alleyway, I hear footsteps coming closer that sound like those of the guards Madame Lazora has patrolling the castle. Soon there are so many guards in the alleyway I can’t count them. Then I start to worry. Do they know about my plan to escape? Normally there would be patrols around the kingdom, but only in groups of two to five. Now there are about fifty, and there are more coming. Then someone walks through and I finally understand why there are so many guards. It isn’t that I have been caught escaping—it is that Madame Lazora is standing right in front of me. “Good thing I won’t have to give that witch an answer,” I mumble under my breath. “Because I will escape tonight.” At school we learn that it is an honor to be in the presence of Madame Lazora. I had only seen her once before, from a distance, at school when she came to check to make sure people were following her standards. “Hello. It’s Pearl, right?” she says with her cold, smooth voice. Now that she is standing right in front of me, I can see what she looks like: she has fire-red eyes with robes made of pure flame that wind up and down her body. She’s looking right at me. “Hello, Madame Lazora. And you are right. That is my name,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “I see you are on a little walk. Rather late, isn’t it? Lucky for me, you are the person that I am looking for,” she says. “Oh, really? Me?” “Yes. I believe you are the smartest, most talented, and most connected to magic of any
Soaring Away
iPhone 11
The Pathway
As the rain began the river ran, past the emerald trees, past the rubbery shrub and into the crystal clear creek, as you walk past the river you take a moment to take in the rainforest, you look below yourself and see the rough rocky ground, you look over and spot the muddy moss, the beautiful trees, and the saturated colors all around, when you continue down the rough, beaten path you find a huge old tree, then past you flies a yellow bee, when you finally reach the creek you look into the water and see the perfect reflection of yourself, just everyday you, when you look around it is revealed that you are surrounded by rubbery shrubbery, muddy moss, and tranquil trees, you think you should stay a bit because you haven’t felt this at peace in years, you sit down, breathe, and become lost in your peaceful place.
