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100% written and illustrated by kids ages 6-13


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Stone Soup Honor Roll: July/August 2022

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 Prisha Gandhi, 7 Angelica Gary, 11 Nari Woo Park, 10 MEMOIR Jordana Blumenthal, 12 Riley Brown, 11 Esperanza Santelices, 12 Mattea Spivey, 10 Xuyi (Lauren) Zheng, 11 POETRY Catherine Wright, 9 STORIES Nishka Budalakoti, 10 Miya Lin, 10


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Highlight from Stonesoup.com

From the Stone Soup Blog Goodbye to “Happily Ever After”: A Review of Little Women Grace Huang, 13Skillman, NJ Kind Cinderella lives luxuriously in a castle after enduring her hardships obediently. Gentle Snow White gets saved by the dashing prince because of her sweet personality. Loving Sleeping Beauty wakes up from her slumber with a single kiss. Characters in these cherished fairy tales we’ve grown up with always end up with their dreams being fulfilled—if they’ve been virtuous. Then what explains what happens to the girls in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott? Little Women documents the growth of four very different sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—from childhood to womanhood. Each sister symbolizes a distinct type of personality, but how they end up in life doesn’t match readers’ initial expectations. By steering us away from our preconceptions, Alcott accurately depicts what life is really like: sometimes unfair and cruel, yet undeniably satisfying. From Alcott, I learned to accept that “happily ever after” doesn’t exist, nor is it ultimately gratifying. My mom had recommended this book to me, but I was hesitant to read it because the story of four girls didn’t initially intrigue me. However, after learning that Alcott’s father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was a friend of Emerson’s and a leader in the transcendentalist movement of the time, I decided to try it. How might Alcott’s feminine perspective of this period add to my understanding? I soon became lost in the intriguing plot, which takes place during the Civil War, and realized that this novel offers so much more than I had anticipated. The hardship the characters had to endure during this difficult period in American life and the complex moral message for women of all ages have had a lasting impact on me. Though they grew up in the same household, the sisters are all quite different, and each is sharply drawn. Meg dreams of ending up in the lap of luxury but is eventually content with something quite the opposite. Jo, a classic tomboy, learns to balance her literary ambitions with tenderness. Beth, an ever-dutiful daughter, willingly resides at her cozy home without any further aspirations, while Amy grows from a pampered little girl to an ardent artist. My two favorite characters are Jo and Amy, despite the fact that they are opposites. Both are ambitious girls, but Amy’s graceful manners are what society valued in a woman at the time, while Jo’s headstrong spirit is often questioned. Even though frivolous Amy almost always winds up better off than Jo, Alcott twists our expectations to ensure that each girl ends up content in her own way. It’s a harsh truth that practicality sometimes wins out over idealism and that being virtuous doesn’t ensure a happy ending. You can read the rest of Grace’s review on our website. About the Stone Soup Blog We publish original work—writing, art, book reviews, multimedia projects, and more—by young people on the Stone Soup Blog. You can read more posts by young bloggers, and find out more about submitting a blog post, here: https://stonesoup.com/stone-soup-blog/.


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On an Equestrian Farm [1]

Here I am. Granting you the vision of the wooden chair that we brought from the first living room because we didn’t have enough chairs for the dining room. You see the fake flowers, they will never live real lives, never die. They will never smell like honey, never wilt. They must always watch us, the humans, do the tedious things we do. The sliding door. With the bug screen. Yesterday night we went through that door. Out on the porch, we petted Trevor, who was not our cat. We don’t own the farm, we don’t work on it. We won’t stay at the house. Soon, it will be all alone again. And there will be no footsteps on the staircase. And the painted china will no longer rattle until the next people come. And there is a little footstool with its broken back. With a mahogany top. Polished wood bottom. We do not get splinters on the floorboards. They have been washed, sanded, many times. We see a little cart. Also made of wood, oh pretty wood, and carved in ways that I couldn’t carve. I cannot carve. The ladder in the back moves up and down, the horse has run away, tired of carrying your load of goods. Outside, bright sun, grass to run on, marsh where you can sink, sneakers and all. The horses, they were angry, or they just wanted to scream, neigh, someone, come! And Trevor, ears perked up, hissed at a bird that was too loud, too happy. And yet, Trevor did not move from his place on the porch. He just glared like a madman and settled down, ready to be petted some more. And my mother lounged in a chair, and my father had gone inside with his camera, only to come out again. And the flies were dancing and buzzing, and joining in, and there was some sort of silent party with no music, because the only sounds were the birds and we wanted that. We never wanted it to stop, just wanted to stay, my mother and father with their wine, laughing, me, running, slipping in the wet grass, laughing at the chickens. The chicken that came up the steps with its loud claws, the chicken that greeted me with the call of its throat, the chicken I shied from, the chicken with menacing eyes, and yet Trevor’s yellow eyes were more menacing. And the barn held nothing but chickens and horses, and the occasional cat, of which there were three. Two cats would not greet us, were not friendly. One ran into the bushes, another stayed on the porch, back arched. The calico, and the tuxedo. We don’t have names for those yet. They are not ours, do not want to be ours. We have no ocean in front of our house, yet all of the paintings on the walls are farms, farms with oceans stretching, waking from deep sleeps. Our house, the house that is not really ours, has a dirt road in front of it. No, gravel. We have no forest either. No boat approaching the forest. Why do the paintings lie? Are these real places, or are they just what someone wants to see? One of the chairs has vines engulfing it, yet the vines are just patterns. You cannot feel them. They are not real. There are many doors in the house. And so many closets, with locks that are rusted shut. One closet opened and had a light with a chain so you could turn it on, and a staircase, which led to a ceiling on which you could bump your head. There is nothing to walk towards. And there is a rug in the second living room, which has pretty flower patterns on it, on which you can roll and become the flowers. These flowers aren’t trying hard, don’t have bright pink colors. These flowers are brown, perfect. Emma Hoff, 9Bronx, NY


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Kleptocracy

Kleptocracy is not Democracy It is a word that’s not heard But should be without a single word of a bird high in the sky who would not die AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL Trevor M. Burns, 10Tucson, AZ Astrid Young, 12Brookline, MA


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My Fourth of July Surprise

A family celebrates the Fourth of July Untitled It was the Fourth of July, and my family and I were just finishing eating dinner outside on our patio. A few seconds after we finished, a crackling sound came behind us. We saw a glow of light and heard a loud clap; right after, a bunch of sparks came flying out of the light and started to fade. We watched the fireworks for fifteen minutes, and I asked my dad if we could start a fire in the fireplace and use our sparklers. He said yes to me. After the fire was going, my dad went to the garage to get the sparklers. Right when we lit them, four bright fireworks came into view. All of a sudden, rain came falling down so hard it sounded like someone was beating a drum. The rain got heavier and the fire was put out. We all ran home as fast as we could. Inside was cozy and warm. And we all decided to go to sleep. Melia Zhou, 8Wilmette, IL Octavius Doherty, 13Pittsburgh, PA


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The Failing Night

After a fight with her dad, the narrator decides to run away My fists were still clenched. Anger coursed through my veins like acidic fire. Just minutes ago, my dad and I had been arguing about a math problem I didn’t know how to do. I gritted my teeth just thinking about it. I had realized the answer after a lot of yelling and arguing. Then, red-faced, Dad had ordered me to go to my room. The anger was a burning pit of rage in my chest. I realized how unfair this was. I had to stop it. I hated all of these rules. They held me back, confining me in restraints much stronger than typical chains. Just this one time my parents had treated me horribly made me think of all the other times. They were like bars striking at me, cold and unforgiving. My rage fired up, threatening to overtake my thoughts. I looked around, trying to calm myself. Then my eyes landed on my bookshelf, where Hatchet, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Caddie Woodlawn, and a bunch of survival guides were displayed proudly. I love the wild and reading about it. An idea started to form, gaining traction and growing until it took up my entire mind. My anger ebbed away, replaced by steely determination. I was going to run away. I thumped down the stairs. Our floorboards creaked. I raced out the door, not caring if my parents heard me, and pulled my bike from its rack, the scraping sound screeching like an angry animal. Mounting my bike, I turned my head and hollered at the top of my lungs: “I’m leaving and you can’t stop me.” Tears Then I pushed off and hurtled down the street, dirt and pebbles skittering out of my way like frightened people. A shout of anger could be heard, most certainly from my dad. And as I peddled away, I looked back. I got farther and farther away, and I saw the figure of my dad, seemingly yelling at me. I smiled. I had made my parents angry, and this time, they couldn’t punish me. After endless peddling, I sat on a rock near my new camp. I was free. I felt as if the tight bonds that had been restraining me all my life had broken. Finally, I could do whatever I wanted to do; no one could stop me. I looked up. The sky was a warm russet, stained with pink, blue, and purple. But what caught my attention were the birds that flew toward the scarlet sun. They dove and spiraled through the endless open air, getting further and further away, as if they loved the wind on their wings. Night began to fall, and the light faded away. I found myself suffocating in the darkness around me, and even worse, strange sounds started to cut through the quiet—crackling and snapping, and squelches and thumps. They sent shivers down my neck. Mosquitoes gathered around me. I shook out my can of bug spray, only to find that it didn’t work. “It will work,” I muttered, panic creeping into my voice. “I haven’t messed up . . .” I pressed over and over. Nothing. The buzzing of the bugs around me sounded like the jeering of my parents. I hated this stupid can. I flung it to the ground, the clatter of metal against rock jolting me. I dashed into the cave, flinging myself into my sleeping bag. This was all wrong. I was supposed to have a good night. I was supposed to be victorious. I lay there for a few minutes, the disappointment engulfing me thoroughly. It began to get cold, too. Really cold. I shivered. My sleeping bag felt threadbare. Chills racked my body in fits of shaking. The bugs were still there, but the cold outweighed them by so much. I rolled around restlessly, and soon the bottom of my sleeping bag was drenched in dew. It felt like ice under my body. My teeth couldn’t stop chattering as I forced myself out of bed. I pulled a lollipop from my backpack and tried to take off the wrapper. The lollipop seemed to be stuck to it. I was determined to make something go right, so I pulled once more. Finally, the wrapper came free. The candy was melted and sticky, all over the place, and flecks had clung to my hand, and now it was stuck to the stick. Tears stung my eyes as I looked at another failure. Suddenly, a car screeched somewhere nearby. The door opened; footsteps rang out. I dropped my lollipop. It fell to the ground. A light shone through the woods. My heart jumped into my throat. Was that a mass murderer, shining a light through the woods, looking for me? Then a voice sounded from the darkness. It was shaky, high, and familiar. It was the voice that had scolded me, chided me, and known me for ten long years. Mom and Dad. A million thoughts raced inside my head. Should I call out to them? But at the same time, I felt so satisfied that they were worried. It was clear from Mom’s quivering voice, and the trembling beam of light, that they were worried. I moved forward, trying to get a closer look, but then I stumbled, scraping my knee hard on the ground. When I managed to get up again, no voice or light could be seen or heard. My parents were gone. A light shone through the woods. My heart jumped into my throat. Was that a mass murderer, shining a light through the woods, looking for me? I curled up in the sleeping bag. The bug bites on my face, neck, arms, and legs itched furiously, and I rolled around trying to scratch them. The freezing wind stung my face, and there was a numb cold all throughout my body. The place where I had scraped my knee burned with raw