An update from our twelfth and thirteenth Book Club meetings! Over the past two weeks, the Stone Soup Book Club has been reading and discussing the book Amal Unbound, by Aisha Saeed. The novel, which is seemingly inspired by Malala Yousafzai’s story, is about a girl in Pakistan who wants to become a teacher. First, before I launch into the Book Club’s discussions, I must say, on behalf of all of our participants, thank you to Lucy Rados (13), who attends Book Club, and who, in the past two weeks, has done a brilliant job leading some of our conversations! Thank you, Lucy! One of the main themes in Amal Unbound is the concept of happiness and freedom. Over the two weeks in which we read this book, we discussed this, brainstorming what happiness and freedom meant to the characters in the book, and then thinking about what happiness and freedom meant to us, and whether our opinions differed. We talked about the characters and setting in the story, thinking about the complexity of the characters (no one was really drawn in black and white), and how the setting played a major role in the book. We also discussed what the themes in Amal Unbound were (such as Education, Friendship, Family, Perseverance, and Gender Equality) and thought more deeply into the cover art of the book, and all that it symbolizes. One of the unique activities we did while reading this book was to think and write about social justice, and which social justice matters we feel are the most important to us. It was really fascinating to hear what everyone had to say! Finally, we also had a conversation about culture. We learned a little bit about Pakistani culture and thought about how the world around us impacts what we think of other cultures, in general. All together, these past two weeks have been full of really fascinating conversations! Our next book, which we will be discussing on 7/15 and 7/22 is: Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson The Stone Soup Book Club is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers, age 9-13, throughout the summer. We meet every Wednesday at 1pm PST (4pm EST) for one hour via Zoom to discuss our chosen book. Join us!
Weekly Writing Workshop #14, Friday July 3, 2020: Create a Character Sketch (in writing)
An update from our fourteenth Weekly Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop, plus some of the output published below The Stone Soup Weekly Writing Workshop is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers. Every Friday, we meet for an hour-and-a-half via Zoom to respond to a new writing challenge, write together in our virtual room, and then share what we have written with one another. Our conversation on Friday July 3 was attended by young writers from the US, the UK, and France. Our discussion started with us looking at artist’s sketches, so that we could get a feel for their roughness, how the artist only draws the significant parts of their character, so that we could translate this into our writing. We also read a few excerpts from texts where a character was described, so that we could get an idea of the different ways to describe a character. We examined a few sketches and paintings to identify what the most important parts of the characters were, and then we wrote for ten minutes, creating a simple sketch for a character of our own design. Then, after we shared a few of our pieces, we went back to writing, this time, to create a new character and to place them in a story. This showed the contrast between the simple sketch that we wrote first, and the more complex one that we wrote second. Read on below to get a feeling for some of the powerful writing we were given a glimpse of in this session! The Writing Challenge: Write a character sketch (or two) that gives the reader a vivid image of your character. The Participants: Ever, Maddie, Sneha, Alice, Lena, Peri, Tilly, Hera, Lucy, Anya, James, Abi, Sophia, Enni, Kanav, Shaili, Janani, Gracie, Aditi, Kathy, Sara, Madeline, Rachel, Charlotte, Seraj, and more . . . Araliya, 11Sandy Hook, CT The Giant Man Araliya, 11 A giant of a man stood in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair. His voice was a very loud grunt. Every time he stepped, the ground shook. He just stood there waiting for an invitation to come in. Five minutes later, he walked into the house and said, “where is Sabre Williams?” Sneha Arun, 10San Jose, CA Mourning Sneha Arun, 10 A long black veil covered her pretty face. She clutched a photograph of him smiling. She was mourning. The features of her face could be seen only when you approached her closely. Her wavy blonde hair curled softly at her shoulders. Her rosy red lips betrayed a sense of foreboding as they morphed into a sad smile. Her blue eyes seemed vacant. She seemed to look beyond the masses of people that tried to comfort her. Out of each eye, came a stream of tears, leaving her eyes red and puffy. She walked into the house, feeling her sadness drown her, while her delicate lace dress formed pools of water. She felt alone in this big world, her one solace was that her husband would always be in her heart. Heather Sierra, 10Mountain View, CA Shoes Heather Sierra, 10 The mother pulled her black hair into a ponytail. She sat on a rough, torn, gray airport seat with a tiny girl in her lap, crowded in by hundreds of others. The girl seemed much happier than the mother. She had a sweet smile on her face, and her big brown eyes were bright with curiosity. She looked around, her long, brown braid that hung down her back swiveling alongside her head. “Mama?” she whispered in a voice so low and quiet, yet so sharp and loud to her mother’s listening ears. “Yes, darling?” her mother replied, tucking her long, silky ponytail into the blackish-colored hood of her jacket. The little girl, who looked about five or six didn’t reply. She either had forgotten her question or no longer cared. The girl’s eyes were glued to an advertisement, something with bold letters and cheery images that her mother couldn’t quite see from the distance between them. The little girl was mesmerized by the illustration on the billboard. The little girl slowly slid off of her mother’s lap, leaving her solemn mother behind. Tucking her too-tight and fading purple shirt into her rainbow, flowing skirt, she began to walk toward the billboard, her tight, clicking, black shoes, tapping against the tile floor. “Come back!” her mother cried, although not nearly loud enough to be heard through the airport chaos. The girl toddled along, taking each step carefully, her black sneakers tap-tapping against the cold metal floor of the airport. Approaching the advertisement, she stopped. There was a brilliant drawing of a black-and-blue pair of shoes, blue on the heels, black laces, and an extraordinary paragraph of unreadable words. “Shoes.” the girl pronounced the word with ease and gentleness, an important word to her. She looked down at her own pair, battered and old yet still comfortable and soft. The laces were well-worn and appeared tired of being knotted so many times. The girl loved the billboard with all of her heart. How much she would give to have a pair of shoes like those. “Come back!” her mother called, finally speaking up again. The little girl looked up at her mother, toward the sign, and back to her mother, as if trying to decide which was more important. Pulling her braid tight in her little girl grip, she wandered back to her mother’s seat. Without a word, she smiled up at her mother, the big, happy smile that she’d started with, and said one word, just one word: “Shoes.” Anya Geist, 14Worcester, MA Two Characters Anya G., 14 1. Like the rest of his body, his face was small. Not smushed in any way, just petite. His features were slightly sharp, like a dulled
Weekly Writing Workshop #13, Friday June 26, 2020: Writing About Someone Reading
An update from our thirteenth Weekly Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop, plus some of the output published below The Stone Soup Weekly Writing Workshop is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers. Every Friday, we meet for an hour-and-a-half via Zoom to respond to a new writing challenge, write together in our virtual room, and then share what we have written with one another. Our conversation on Friday June 26 was attended by young writers from the US, the UK, and France. We started with a discussion of how to write about characters who are reading, and analyzed several different paintings to see how the artist portrayed the subject reading. We shared out our different ideas; is the character focused on the book? Does the character look annoyed at being interrupted? What type of person does the character look like? In addition to viewing these paintings, we read poems and excerpts of essays that reflected the painting’s message or another writer’s thoughts on reading and the role of the reader in the writing process. We then set to writing about a character who is reading, often inspired by the paintings we talked about. Read on below to get a feeling for some of the powerful writing we were given a glimpse of in this session! The Writing Challenge: Write about a character who is reading, inspired by a painting. The Participants: Ever, Tilly, Peri, Julia, Maddie, Georgia, Lorelei, Kanav, Rhian, Grégoire, Neve, Lena, Enni, Benjamin, James, Liam, and many more… Lena Aloise, 11Harvard, MA Familiar Words Lena Aloise, 11 Blowing specks of dust from a cover, bound in cherry leather that was engraved with letters of sparkling gold, brilliance fading along with the passing years of her life. Tentatively, she held the thing, awkward in her small hands, to her face, flipping through the pages, of which there were many, almost an overwhelming amount. Placing it on her lap and settling into a pile of cushions, she began. And the waters leaped, frothing, colliding with a nipping cool saltwater breeze, as the massive thing pushed them aside. They protest against their displacement, as do the wriggling fishes that dart away in a flash of silver, terrified. Oh how their anchor moaned in protest as it was lowered down, below ripping currents, metal links scraping against the rocks, lying on the sand dunes. Its inhabitants jumped from the deck and landed with a thudding that shook the strip of narrow dock upon which their boot-clad feet now rested. Their bodies were agile, possessing great strength from long days of lifting heavy things and navigating tempestuous seas. Seas that tested both physical and mental capabilities. She paused there, took a breath, uselessly straightened her wrinkled blouse and continued reading. Oh, and their captain made all the men look like mere children, with his snarling lips and looming presence. If his crew’s muscular capabilities had been great, his own were simply unhuman, and he was as tough as the ship he had built with his own weathered hands. When he crossed the cobblestone roads, women and men alike quickly looked away, fearful that this ravenous beast might be hungry. The girl remembered a time, late at night, when she had written those words in ink, thought they were beautiful, kissed the pages, then reconsidered and hurled them into the garbage can. A week later, she had changed her mind yet again and the crumpled papers had been retrieved. Now, relooking at it, her cheeks flushed a cherry pink and she regretted not letting them turn to ash in the incinerator. As an author, she supposed that they made her seem weak, fearful of this person who might not be as looming as she made him out to be. Did ship captains read this and think of the silly little girl who found them so frightening? Oh, how she regretted her foolish words now. But she continued, and soon reached the ending, a back page that listed words of praise for this book, the book that was hers and not hers at the same time. ‘Captivating’ one fellow writer had said. ‘American literature at its finest, destined to become a classic’ a magazine had complimented. ‘Earl has fully mastered the art of storytelling and this book should go down in classroom textbooks’ another had cheerily told reporters. All she could think, as she read these aimless thoughts, was ‘People actually read this?’ She shuddered as she imagined all those fellow humans, enjoying her book, feasting on a piece of her soul. Anya Geist, 14Worcester, MA At the Dinner Table Anya Geist, 14 The girl’s leg bounced up and down, jittery and uncalm. Right now, she was sitting straight up, rigid in her chair, but she figured in a few minutes she would be fidgeting around, squirming in her seat. She loved reading, honestly, she did. And she loved this book. But there was so much going on around her. Everyone was loud at the dinner table, laughing heartily as they traded stories, or clicking their tongues as they bemoaned whichever stock was going down. At any moment, they could call on her. They could say, “How was your day?” They could take her book away, and not give it back until much, much later. That risk was too great, and so she was on edge, half-listening to the conversation, half-absorbed in the story. It was like a game of tug of war in her head. The book was pulling on her, trying to sweep her away. And she wanted it to sweep her away. Yet she was forced to listen as Father addressed one of his brothers, just in case he directed his next question at her. The bouncing in her leg was uncontrollable now. She needed to calm it, to make it go away. It was distracting, so distracting. She flipped a page in her book. This was it. She was close to the end. And here she read, her
