Jane Levi

Mysterious Moon (Nikon Coolpix L830) Photograph by Hannah Parker, 13. Published in Stone Soup, October 2018. A note from Sarah Ainsworth Dear Stone Soup readers, Did you know that Stone Soup has a YouTube channel? We’ve posted a variety of videos before, including interviews with authors published in Stone Soup. However, this week I want to draw your attention to some recent videos we’ve been posting. First, did you see the wildlife videos by blogger Sierra Glassman? One was a video about hummingbirds, and the other was a compilation of wildlife videos she shot while on vacation in Pantanal, Brazil. Not only are they interesting to watch, but they also make you think about how wildlife photography and videography is no longer solely in the hands of National Geographic photographers. You very well might have access to a camera right now! Is there something outside that you could film and make the subject of a short documentary? Even inside there may be something worthy of documentation. A pet or a plant, perhaps? Don’t feel that nature documentaries need to be shot in remote parts of the Sahara—you can make one in your own backyard! On the fiction side of things, we published two videos this week: “Space Battle” by Christian Goh and “A Day at Camp” by Caitlin Goh. I highly recommend you to take the time to watch them. Though they were created using the same software, Christian and Caitlin take very different approaches to their short films. Christian chooses to film a science fiction story, while Caitlin gives a day-in-the-life glimpse of a character’s camp experience. Both young filmmakers use a combination of still and moving images (photos and videos, in other words) to tell their story. They also make the choice to only feature a musical score for their films, with some sound effects, but without any spoken dialogue. Instead, the words are written on screen for viewers to read for themselves. This is not a common practice anymore, but back in the days of silent film, it was the only way to convey language on screen—besides body language, of course! Without dialogue spoken aloud, words needed to be chosen carefully, and visual representations, like the actors’ behavior, needed to express a great deal. It can be striking to look back at these old movies and see how “over”-acted they are, or how exaggerated the actors behaved. But remember, they had to make sure the audience knew what was going on! Do you think you could make a silent film with a more modern, subtle acting style? After watching these videos, you may very well be inspired to make your own. It can be helpful to start with a small idea. Maybe you’d like to create a nature documentary like Sierra did. Or maybe you’d like to create a fiction film like the ones the Gohs made. My advice is to lay out a step-by-step plan if you want to make a movie, including script deadlines, casting ideas, locations for filming, and times for final editing (called post-production). Then, once you’re done, submit it! Happy creating! P.S. Don’t forget that we’ve published a screenplay in Stone Soup before! Read Oliver Jacobs’s lively “Bugs Are the Future!” here. If you write your own screenplay and are pleased with it but don’t wish to make it a visual production, feel free to submit that to Stone Soup! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! As I discussed above, we published two excellent videos this week: “Space Battle” by Christian Goh and “A Day at Camp” by Caitlin Goh. Leave a comment on the blog if you enjoy them! From Stone Soup July/August 2018 The Moon and My Heart By Rebecca Beaver, 13 The moon ate my heart. My vision was tainted. I staggered forward, uncertain. I heard something disappear. I think— I am myself. I taste the hole in my chest. The moon’s smile mocks me. I know, I know I am not myself— I am merely a whisper Of a husked heartbeat. Click on this link to read more poems by Stone Soup authors on similar themes. Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky

“Umbrellas”. Photograph by Marlena Rohde, 12, the cover of Stone Soup, February 2019. A note from William Rubel I’d like to start this week’s newsletter by talking about the remarkable February issue. Our editor, Emma Wood, put together an issue that departs from our normal structure. You will find a novella, a poetry cycle, a cycle of four poems and a drawing about the seasons, and a varied selection of art throughout the chapters of the novella. The novella, by 11-year-old Harper Miller, is the core of the issue by virtue of its length—but all of the work was selected to form a harmonious whole. I have mentioned SoundCloud in recent newsletters. Listen to Harper reading her novella at the Stone Soup SoundCloud channel. If you like what you hear, then please follow us. It is an honor to publish Harper’s novella. Longer works of fiction are more difficult to shape and finish than shorter stories. As a writer myself, I can speak about this from experience. It’s increasingly easy to lose one’s way the longer a piece becomes. “Dancing in the Rain” rewards the attentive reader. The story is calm, but deep. I hope you all like it as much as I do. If any of you are working on a longer-form piece of fiction, please persevere to the end and then submit it to Stone Soup so Emma can consider your work. We are flexible about length, so don’t worry about how many pages it is. William’s weekend project Look at “Umbrellas,” the cover illustration for the February issue. Wow! A study of color. A study of spacial relationships—the very distant sky, the clouds, and the near but still-out-of-reach umbrellas all appear to be attached to separate planes. And which way are they curving? Looking at the photograph I feel stillness. Cold. Ethereal beauty. Balance. What are your responses to the photograph? Pick up your phone or camera and take your own photograph that captures at least one of your own responses, or write your thoughts about Marlena’s photograph in the comments section on our website. As I suggest so often, do this whether you are a Stone Soup-age reader or whether you are older. And, if you are a Stone Soup age writer or artists, consider sending us your work using the Submit button. Until next week, Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our book reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! The review of Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy, by Nina Vigil, raises interesting questions about how as a reviewer one should best approach reviewing a book series. Two interesting pieces by Stone Soup bloggers. The first is a poetic work by a young writer called “The Blue Chair.” This piece is a reminder that very young children can create work that makes you think. “Sledding,” by Maya V., reminds me of the years during my childhood when we lived in Washington, DC. It didn’t snow often, but when it did snow enough for sledding—as Maya describes—we’d immediately go to a sledding spot. Being able sled was so rare, and I was always so excited! From Stone Soup February 2019 Dancing in the Rain: A Novella By Harper Miller, 11   This book is dedicated to my little brother, Theo, for encouraging me to try.   Dear Reader, Hi! My name is Harper Miller, and I want to be an author when I grow up. I live with my very old dog, Oscar, my Mom and Dad, and my little brother, Theo (with me in the picture above), who is three years younger than me. I started my book on May 11, 2017, when I was 10 and finished on November 27, 2017, and now I am 11. I worked a lot on this book, and I want to say thank you to my Mom and Dad, who helped make this possible. Also, thank you to my editor (and close friend), Mackenzie. You might wonder why I wrote about a girl going through a drought. Here is my answer. I wrote this book to show that a child can make a difference in the world, even when things might be looking pretty bad. Writing this book was one of the many highlights of my life so far. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Sincerely, Harper You can read Harper’s nine-chapter novella in the current issue of Stone Soup. If you like what you read, then please support this work by subscribing or donating to Stone Soup magazine.  Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky Stone Soup is published by the Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. Your donations make our work  possible. Please click the Donate button on our website to help us publish more great work by kids.

I board. I find a seat by the window, I sit . Illustrator Savva Gretzky, 13 for “Subway Adventure” by Elam Fifer-Whiting, 13. Published July/August 2014. A note from William Rubel The first two lines of the Stone Soup story, “Subway Adventure,” are, “It is super hot, humid. Sweat is running down my back like a brook.” I am writing this week’s Newsletter from New York and it could not be more different than the hot humid day in which Elam Fifer set his story. It is very cold. I am from California. I have never been any place as cold as New York is right now. I am in New York with my Stone Soup colleague, Jane Levi. A highlight of this trip, for sure, something we will never forget, was our wonderful dinner on Tuesday evening with prolific Stone Soup contributor Sabrina Guo and her parents, Spencer and Eva. We met in a Chinese restaurant. A great meal is always a combination of the food and the company. This was a memorable meal. We talked about many things—writing, music, school, and, of course, Stone Soup. Specifically, our refugee project. As you know, Sabrina has taken on the project of bringing the creative work of refugee kids, especially the Another Kind of Girl Collective, to our website and to the pages of Stone Soup. We exchanged ideas on how to move forward with this initiative. I’ll give you a fuller report on what we discussed in a couple weeks. I asked Sabrina whether she kept a journal and she said that she did. She doesn’t write in it every day. But she does write every week, usually a couple of times in the week. I can’t emphasize how important journal writing can be to support your larger writing projects. Writing takes practice. It takes practice to get control of the words and also it takes practice to learn to say what you mean and mean what you say. There is something about writing in journals that encourages direct, honest writing. Journal writing is private writing. You are the only one who reads it, so the pressure one feels producing writing that will be read by one’s teachers, parents, friends, or, if you write for Stone Soup, thousands of strangers, is not there. I agree with Sabrina that it is probably best to write your journal with pen or pencil rather than type it. You don’t need a fancy expensive writing book for your journal—any notebook with lined paper (or plain paper if you prefer) works equally well. If you don’t already keep a journal, then when should you start? I’d say, this weekend! On Thursday, Jane and I went to an exhibit about the life, art and writing of J. R. R. Tolkein, the author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The exhibit is at the Morgan Library, having come from the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. It will go to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris in the Fall. When Tolkein was 12 he kept a small watercolor journal—a painting journal. This is an example of a painting Tolkein made when he was the age of Stone Soup artists. Many artists keep journals in the form of drawings and small paintings. If you gravitate more towards the graphic arts then start a graphic journal. If your art might be photography then I advise you to choose the images that you want to be part of your journal and that you print them out, glue them to paper, and make a proper journal/book with them. Trips to New York are often packed—this is not all the Stone Soup work we did. We are expanding our Board of Directors. I will save talking about our new Board, and who else we met in New York, for the Newsletter next week. Suffice it to say: we are so excited about our new Board and what they will bring to Stone Soup. I cannot wait to share this with you. And. We also spoke with a curator at a major New York museum about collaborating on a big project: there will be more on this in a few weeks. I just want you to know that some really great and exciting things are in the works! In closing, as always, if you are 13 or younger and have produced something really great this last week that you think would be appropriate for Stone Soup, then please go to our submission page and upload it. And, also as always, your subscriptions help us keep the Stone Soup project going, so please subscribe for your Stone Soup-aged children, for children of friends, for nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. Help us put this great magazine in the hands of kids who will appreciate it. Until next week, Highlights from the past week online All the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers is at stonesoup.com! Don’t miss this gorgeous drawing and poem by David Jacobs, The Blue Chair. From Stone Soup July/August 2014 Subway Adventure By Elam Fifer-Whiting, 13 Illustrated by Savva Gretzky, 13 It is super hot, humid. Sweat is running down my back like a brook. I am waiting. The A train is mine. I am on the east side of the Forty-Second Street platform for the southbound A train. People are running, late people walk slowly, lost people are walking purposefully. A woman pushes a rattling, clanking cart. She is dirty, a wrinkled old woman. She bumps to a stop next to me. She jingles a cup at me. She wants money. I have none. She and her cart continue on. I feel sadness. She is poor. How did she become poor? How did she get the cart on the platform? Where does she live? Why do I not have change for her? Where is she going? I don’t ask. A train stops, it is not mine. There is a band playing, a one-man, four-piece band. His face is small and thin, his clothes are clean. He is joyful, he is playing joyful