Jane Levi

The Stone Soup Annual 2017 cover artist, Kathleen Werth, with her copy of the Annual (with thanks to her mom for the photo) A note from William Rubel The 2017 Stone Soup Annual has arrived at many of your homes. You see here in the photograph Kathleen Werth, the young artist who painted our beautiful cover, reading her copy. Note the bookmarks at all of the stories she wants to get back to! At 370 pages the Annual provides hours of reading. If you don’t have your copy yet we will be able to ship it to you after Christmas. And, the 2018 Annual can be pre-ordered now as a stand-alone volume or as part of a digital print bundle. For those of you who prefer reading the issues as issues we have just put up a page under the main menu bar containing all the issue PDFs for 2017. This page is only available to subscribers. Subscribers can go to the page and download the same PDFs used to print Stone Soup issues and which make up the print Annual. I think the best way to read PDFs is on your iPad or other tablet. So, if you have a tablet, look at this page from your tablet. I have an iPad. I read my Stone Soup issues in iBooks. Tastes of Christmas If you haven’t already read and cooked your way through the December Food Issue, why not spend some time eating with Stone Soup over the holidays? There is a whole range of fantastic recipes for you to try, including some specifically for Christmas. From our December issue you can try Catherine Gruen’s spicy and soothing Ponche Navideño (Christmas Punch) and Ella Martinez Nocito’s crumbling Christmas Cookies, while the latest post from our young blogger Sarah Cymrot conjures up the warmth of Christmas baking and family traditions in Traditions and Monkey Bread. What are your favorite foods from this time of year? Post a comment on our website to let us know about the tastes and smells that evoke the holidays for you – and if you try out any of the Stone Soup recipes, post a picture and tell us how it turned out!     Creativity in the Holidays Stone Soup is about creativity. You kids are used to being “asked” in school to write a story, write an essay, write a poem, draw a picture, etc. And, of course your parents, grandparents, and other adults you encounter in your life, including your teachers, when they were kids they were creative, too. They had to be because their grades, like yours, depended upon it. Stone Soup is about moving the motivation to use the arts outside of the school room to record, interpret, and deepen your real-life experiences. While we hope that you kids who read Stone Soup will be inspired to be creative yourselves — “hey, I can write as well as that” or “hey, I’m a better writer than that” — we also hope to inspire the adults in your lives to be brave and sit down and write or draw or use their phone to take a photograph that is thoughtful — an image intended as creative expression, not just a snap, just like you do. So. The December issue was our first food issue. Everyone gets four free articles a month at stonesoup.com, so I hope that all of you have at least looked at your four free articles, and homed in on the food. Nearly 600 of you have received copies of the Stone Soup 2017 Annual. Look at the food issue in December. Now, as food food food is the theme of this school holiday, what I’d like to be able to write about next week is the great work that you kids AND your parents, aunts, uncles, close family friends and grandparents have done to make this 2017 Christmas week a creative one. I’d like you to send me photographs, drawings, paintings, and recipes that are about the holiday. As food is central to most of our holiday and Christmas celebrations I’d expect a lot of the work you do to be centered around food. I think that recipes are a good kind of a project for joint family efforts. Adults and kids can work on recipes that include a headnote — the story that precedes the recipe — illustrations for the recipe in the form of photographs, drawings, or paintings, and the recipe itself. When you send me recipes please be sure to note if it is a family project. If you are on a family vacation, then share with us something about that. Again, I’d like you kids to try to get parents and grandparents involved, too. In this case, remember that what is easy for you might be hard for them. As an incentive to the adults in your life — I would like to be able to feature at least one family- or friendship group-produced creative project in next week’s newsletter. OK. The “where to send” details. If you think you have something you’d like to see in an issue at stonesoup.com and then in the 2018 Print Annual, you should submit it to Stone Soup the standard way. I will look at the submissions this week, too. But if you made something that you simply want me to consider as a one-off to share with the Newsletter audience, then send it to me at newsletter@stonesoup.com. Until next week, William   From Stone Soup November/December 2007 A Calf for Christmas By William Gwaltney, 12 Illustrated by the author It was Christmas Eve, and everything was ready. Presents had been purchased with great care months before. Yesterday they had been wrapped in dozens of pretty papers and decorated with beautiful bows. Now they sat like sparkling jewels in a pirate’s treasure chest, under the fragrant boughs of a giant spruce. The farmhouse was filled with tinsel and holly and light. The dining room table was covered with a white tablecloth, and red and green candles stood in

The meteorite kept hurtling towards Earth, and Cam watched as her vision darkened Illustrator Charlotte Myers Martin, 13, for Falling into Earth by Ethan Levin, 13. Published November/December 2011. A note from William Rubel A little business for our adult readers and then into the meat of today’s newsletter. Kids, skip these business paragraphs if you like. First, logging in. To be honest, we have had to commission an all new system for managing online access to Stonesoup.com. Our fulfillment house, ICN, has done a terrific job — but there are still a few rough edges. Our apologies. We have just posted login instructions. Basically, click on the login button in the menu bar and, if you can’t remember or make a mistake with your details choose “password reset” when the login screen appears. The rest is just a matter of following instructions. If you need help, call ICN: their phone number is on the login page. Their office hours are 7:30 am to 10:00 pm Monday – Friday Eastern Time (USA). Christmas orders. The last day to guarantee receipt of the 2017 Annual by Christmas (in the United States) is Tuesday, the 19th. We are shipping all orders priority mail. Orders have been going out every day since the beginning of the week. There are 105 books left. More are on order. I underestimated demand for our Stone Soup story book anthologies. We have sold out of all titles. If you ordered a title that is sold out you will be given one or more substitute titles that will arrive for Christmas. The back-ordered tittles will be shipped later this month when we get them from the printer. My apologies. Again. Everything is being shipped priority mail, and all packages will arrive by Christmas. Now, to the Saturday Newsletter! My daughter, as most of you know, is in sixth grade. This week, in her English class they are studying the “Immortal Jellyfish.” This is a tiny jellyfish that has the amazing ability to respond to stress by getting younger! In fact, it can go from adulthood back to being a baby. Many scientists are interested in this jellyfish because it seems to promise the possibility of immortality. Unless, of course (if one is a jellyfish), one gets eaten first! Stella’s teacher is asking his students to think about whether they think immortality would be a good thing for us humans. He is asking his students to make a list of pros and cons: would making humans immortal be a good or a bad idea?One obvious problem with immortality is that if nobody dies then we would definitely run out of food, clean water, and the resources we need to live. In fact, if humans never died and babies keep getting born and, in fact, if the immortal humans kept having children it’s pretty clear that we’d have a planet-wide disaster on our hands. Death is required for life. Science fiction writers are the people who start with the inspiration of something amazing like the immortal jellyfish and then try to imagine various “what-might-happens”. One solution to the problem of immortality would be for millions of immortals to rocket away from earth to explore the solar system and the galaxies. Another way would be for the immortals to kill one non-immortal every time an immortal was created. Horrible, Awful. Terrible! But it would work to keep the population of immortal humans from destroying the world. Science fiction is a fiction of possibilities and ideas. In the best science fiction, the author takes an idea from science, and then thinks, “well, if such and such came true, then what?”  The consequences of the “what-ifs” are often what science fiction books are about. Up to this point, Stone Soup has not published a lot of science fiction. We’d like that to change. I would like you all to start thinking about big issues and asking big questions and then make the shift to writing inquisitive fiction, which is what science fiction is. Over the holidays, choose a scientific ideas that interests you and play around with what-if scenarios. If you end up with a story you think Emma would be interested in for Stone Soup, then please submit it to the magazine. Until next week, William From Stone Soup September/October 2002 Characteristic Property By Rachel Marris Reeves, 12 Illustrated by Martin Taylor, 12   The space pods zoomed above Cassiopeia Jaiden Starwing as she stood on the moving sidewalk on her way home from Academy. Cassie ignored the zooming noise as everyone else did, but her mind did not focus on the obvious. Cassie always acted mellow—she was the youngest of seven children, and the only girl, and she was used to lying low while her brothers got into trouble. But today Cassie was bubbling inside. Tomorrow was her thirteenth birthday, but, like everyone on the planet Earth, she celebrated a day before with her family members. Today was her special day—her day to shine. Cassie grinned as the sidewalk approached her home. It was common knowledge throughout the galaxy that the people on Earth had some of the richest homes anywhere—Earth was a base station to the other planets and jobs there were well paying and important. Cassie’s home was no exception—it was a huge house, with floor upon floor of circular living space. Cassie’s father owned the fastest growing rocket ship company in the galaxy, and was always busy. Cassie’s mother used to work for the Intergalactal Peace Council and retired soon after her second son, Forrest, was born. Now Oriana Starwing was one of the most admired economics teachers on Earth, and was known as far away as Neptune. Cassie entered her home, expecting to be greeted by her family at the door, the way her brothers’ celebrations began, but things were not as she suspected. In fact, they were the opposite…/more

. . . the game continued, but Jessica seemed to treat Cathy differently Illustrator Christy Callahan, 13, for Twisted Friendships by Hana Bieliauskas, 13. Published May/June 2001 A note from William Rubel Monopoly! What adult doesn’t have memories of playing Monopoly with friends? Playing Monopoly with Herb Ritz, my best friend in junior high, remains one of the strongest memories from my early teens. When I was thirteen, the same age as Hanna when she created this magnificent drawing, Herb and I would sit on my bedroom floor for hours at a time playing the game. Looking at this drawing reminds me exactly where in my room we sat to play — a little to the side of an overstuffed armchair, near my dresser, with my bed behind me. My room had triangular-shaped leaded glass windows on two sides. I can vividly recall one game we played when the light coming in through the windows was particularly beautiful. It was a blue day in Los Angeles. Light filtered through the large Pittosporum tree and camellias that were outside my bedroom’s windows. Herb became a famous photographer, but unfortunately, he died young. Art is a magical thing. An evocative drawing, like Hana’s, takes you places. I hadn’t thought about those Monopoly games for a while. This picture reminds me how much I miss my friend. Over the upcoming holiday I am sure many of you will be playing board games with friends and family. I can think of no better inspiration for drawings of your own than this one by Hana. Note the incredible detail in every part of the drawing including the shadow of the chair projected on the carpet which makes clear that sun was streaming in through the window. If you make a drawing you love — please send it to Emma so she can consider it for Stone Soup. New Blog Posts New posts from our Stone Soup Bloggers have come in, and people are enjoying hearing their ideas on everything from nature to sport to sewing. Thank you, bloggers! Remember, if you want to blog for Stone Soup, go the Click here to Submit button and upload a proposal. You are not limited to fiction or poetry. Blogger Jessica Crocker has posted a Christmas felt Santa project. In Jessica’s own words, “These hand sewn ornaments are easy to make and make great gifts. I cut the shapes out free-hand for mine, but there are plenty of free templates on the internet if you prefer.” I have lots of red felt on hand. My daughter and I will be making this project to hang on our tree. Blogger Lucas Cooke has a thought-provoking essay “Books versus Video Games.” Read Lukas’ blog and join those (including me) who have already left comments to tell Lukas what you think of what he’s saying. California Fires If any of you experienced the fires up in Sonoma, Napa, and Lake Counties or are currently caught up in the fires burning from Ventura County to San Diego we hope you are all safe and well. Do please send us anything you have made (or are making) about these immense, life-changing, memory-searing events. We always want to share your photographs, drawings, stories, poems, and music, whatever they might express. Until next week, William The Annual has arrived and is about to start shipping The 2017 Annuals have arrived from the printer! They are 370 pages, are printed in full color, weigh over a pound, and are simply magnificent. We printed 600 copies and the pre-orders we’ve received mean they are going to disappear quickly when we start shipping on Tuesday. If you go to our website, stonesoup.com, and click on subscribe you (or your parents or grandparents) can order the print Annual, a digital subscription, or our best value, and I think the the best of both worlds, a digital subscription plus the print annual. You will be able to choose shipping options. Book reviews galore This is my daughter with the books we brought back from the St. Louis’ teacher’s convention. Thank you all of you who have told us you’d like to review books. I will start sending out review copies from this batch on Monday, and there will be more to come in the new year. Don’t miss the December issue We are thrilled to share the December 2017 issue – our first ever food issue! Log into your account now to read all the stories, poems and recipes published this month, and enjoy some stunning art from our contributors. Subscribers can also download a PDF copy to print at home or upload to an offline device; or download our app and sign in to read it there. If you need any help getting access to the full range of material in this month’s issue, contact our customer service center on +1 215-458-8555 or at stonesoup@icnfull.com. The lines are open 7:30 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. Monday to Friday, and email will be responded to within three days.     From Stone Soup September/October 2000 Enchantment of the Wolves By Leah Karker, 12 Illustrated by Ayla Reynolds, 12 The farm looked old and dull, but in my thoughts everything, even the quiet farm, was eerie. I had the dream again; the same dream I had every full moon, the only dream I ever had. The gentle eyes of my mother looked down at me. All I could see were the soft, green eyes. I could feel the warmth and fear of my mother, fear that was for me. “Terry!” called my father. “Breakfast!” He was actually my adoptive father. He found me in the woods and took care of me. He knew that adopting me would be a bad idea. He had no experience whatsoever with raising a child, and the only person who could help him would be his younger brother. He spent weeks searching for my family, but found no one. He could give me up to an orphanage or adopt me himself. I suppose he felt responsible