These two illustrations were commissioned by Editor Gerry Mandel for our upcoming July/August 2017 issue. On the left, an illustration by Catherine Chung, age 13, for her own story, “Welcome Aboard.” On the right, an illustration by Elena Delzer, age 13, for “A Horse Named Seamus.” Call to all young artists! There is going to be more art in Stone Soup. Starting in September, we will be publishing art separate from story illustrations. The four best images sent in this week will be featured in next week’s newsletter. Please upload images to our submissions page. A Note from Editor William Rubel Behind the scenes lots is happening at Stone Soup. Jane Levi, our new operations manager, is getting us set up so soon, probably defined as within a couple of months, we will be running efficiently in our virtual office configuration. Many of our back office systems are in flux as we move to a fully automated system for subscriptions. Michael King, our go-to person for just about everything, is responsible for customer relations. Michael is setting up a modern FAQ system for us so you will soon be able to answer more of your questions at our site online. I will be more formally introducing new staff in a few weeks — I want to introduce everyone along with a coherent explanation of future plans. But I do want to say that Emma Wood, a poet with an MFA from the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop, has joined our staff and is developing ideas for upcoming issues. I can also say that, beginning in September, we will be increasing the frequency of publication to monthly, though probably still with a combined Summer issue. Last week’s newsletter was short because the website was down, owing to an error made as it was shifted to a new server. The site is now transferred and opening many, many times faster than it was before. It is also more secure. In the change, however, we lost our Stone Soup Store with the Stone Soup Anthologies for sale. We hope to have that back up next week. Here it is! A photograph from last week’s reunion of Stone Soup founders, taken at Porter College, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), which is where we started the magazine. From left to right: William Rubel, Richard Hof, Ziggy Rendler-Bregman, Ivan Rosenblum, Darryl Ferrucci, and Gerry Mandel. Ivan, a pianist, was our faculty advisor. The only one not pictured is Laura Garcia, who sadly died a few years ago. And here we were in 1974! I am sure you can work out who is who. Darryl is the child. When he was 10 and I was his babysitter at 20, he remembers that I told him that when I am 80 and he is 70, and we are both sitting on a park bench, people would think that we were same age. Not 80, yet! But, in answer to the question young readers of this newsletter might have, like, how did it happen that our hair turned gray, I recommend you go to YouTube and watch the song You Have Deceived Me from Pirates of Penzance. My 10-year-old daughter loves this song. It is a song about how it is that our hair has turned gray. It answers the question about how this happened with the direct, and realistic, answer, “It’s gradually got so.” From the Stone Soup issue: May/June 2017 Maple and Marmalade Written by Fiona Mulley, 13 Illustrated by Maya Work, 12 A loud knock sounded on Violet’s dressing-room door. “Places for Act One!” Violet leapt up from her dressing-table stool, her breath quickening. A little shiver of nervous excitement ran down her spine as she peered into the mirror one last time, checking anxiously to see that her microphone was in place. She didn’t look quite like herself; the reflection staring back at her from inside the frame of lights was not the image of a thirteen-year-old girl but that of a young Civil-War-era woman. What with the stage makeup, full hoop skirt, and her normally loose hair gathered into a stately bun, she scarcely recognized herself.Violet slipped her hand into the hidden pocket in her costume and groped about, closing her fingers around a pebble- like object. It was a small piece of wood, its surface was smooth and soft; the bark had been whittled away. She drew it out of her pocket and gazed at it wistfully, slipping into a reverie. She could remember . . . . Read more
Music Contest Winners 2017
The entries for our February 2017 Music Contest, in which Stone Soup readers recorded their performances of Anna Steiger’s childhood composition La Valse des Fleurs (Flower Walz), were so good we decided to choose three winners instead of just one. Each of them receive the prize of a $15.00 Amazon gift certificate, with our congratulations. You can see and hear all of their performances here. Jahanara Akhund, 12, Huntington, New York [youtube url=”https://youtu.be/6bMWtmcl5Kg” autoplay=”no”] Talia Finckel, 11, New York, New York [youtube url=”https://youtu.be/ac30VIcYi5o” autoplay=”no”] Charles Gibb, 8, Arlington, Virginia [youtube url=”https://youtu.be/5_xKivBthM0″ autoplay=”no”]
Writing Activity: adopting a style through unusual language, with “Once Upon a Time” by Robin Eldred, 6
Introduction to This Stone Soup Writing Activity “Once Upon a Time” is an example of a story written in unusual English. This work is by a six-year-old and is a good example of how young children express themselves differently from older children and adults. You will find lots of run-on sentences and dreamlike images flowing one into another. You will also see a lot of very short sentences, that are partly a sign that the author is very young, and partly a very effective method of story telling. You will see these techniques used by famous adult authors, as well as by some of the younger authors published in Stone Soup. It is also a useful practice for people working on poetry. Project: Adopting a Style For this project, create a narrator (the person who tells the story) who thinks in and speaks in an unusual English, in an unusual style. Think of a character—a infant, an older person, a visitor to your country whose first language is different, a person who is dreaming or confused for some reason, or someone living in an imaginary world of imaginary people and imaginary language. The fun of this project, and the challenge, is to find, invent and adopt the language of your character, use it to create your world and tell your story, and to make it understandable to your readers. So, imagine you aren’t you, whether you are a different age, or from a different time or place or planet, and that you think and speak an English different from your own in structure and wording. Who and what do you see? How do you describe it? And what is the story you have to tell? If it helps you to tell the story, illustrate it too. Once Upon a Time By Robin Elder, 6, Hopewell, New Jersey Illustrated by the author From the March/April 1986 issue of Stone Soup Once upon a time there was a little girl and a little boy. The little girl’s name was Judy. The little boy’s name was Michael. They lived in a old house. They played in the backyard. Their seesaw was made out of wood, their swingset was made out of wood, and their slide was made out of wood. They had a garden. The little boy went out to play and when he swung on the swings he saw a rainbow. It was just after a rainstorm when he went out to play. He went to his sister and his sister went outside. They both looked up at the sky. They saw the rainbow. They got their mother and father and then they were all standing outside looking at the rainbow. Then they heard a big boom. Their mother went into the kitchen, their father went into the bedroom, the little girl stayed outside, and the little boy went into the front yard. The mother found a broken window, the father found the faucet turned on, the little girl found the fence broken, and the little boy found an old man. The little boy went into the house and called the police. He said, “Somebody robbed our house.” And the police came and said, “Did you rob their house?” The old man said, “No, I am the plumber. I came to fix the sink. The fence got broken by the rain. The window got broken by the lightning. And they couldn’t turn off the sink, so I came just to fix the sink.” So the policeman said, “Where’s the rain and where’s the lightning? I need to arrest them.” But then the rain came and the lightning and everyone was safe and sound in the house but the policeman. He stayed outside and tried to catch the rain and lightning. When the rain and lightning stopped, there were two pretty rainbows and then it happened over and over. And then the little boy said, “Look at the rainbows.” Everybody looked. Everybody saw one rainbow for each of them. They all climbed their rainbows and slid down and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around until somebody stopped and then somebody else and somebody else and else and else and else and else. And there was a rainbow monster and a rainbow dragon and a rainbow bunny and a rainbow deer.
