Draw your dream home! Thanks to Stone Soup ’20—21 Intern Emily Fleck for this week’s prompt!
My School, a short story by Feifei Wan, 9
Feifei Wan, 9, Portland, OR My School Feifei Wan, 9 Even though the pandemic is still here, it doesn’t stop me from going to my school every day. This Sunday, just like any other day, my mom and I decided to ride our bikes. While we were passing by a small pond near the school driveway, we saw a toad! The trick to spot a toad is to make sure the sun is out. It was a warm and sunny day. The toad whom I call Mr. Grogg was just like an old friend waiting for us to visit on the bank. Not far away from the pond, surprisingly, the cherry blossoms had bloomed a lot over the past week. Because the flowers were too beautiful to ignore, we took a lot of pictures. My favorite picture was the one where my mom and I did the photobomb. Even though my mom was in the background, I could still see her big smile. Our next stop was the grass field. There were a bunch of little daisies sparkling in the sun. I wish we could have taken more photos with the beautiful flowers, but I didn’t forget that our original plan was to get some exercise and enjoy the sun. So here we go! Our bike rides, one lap, two laps, three laps…… I felt so happy that spring was here! It was Monday, but not a normal Monday. My school was open for K-2 for the first day of hybrid learning! It was so exciting since we have been studying on a computer for a whole year. Even though I am a 3rd grader, I was so happy for the lower grades that I decided to walk to school during my lunch break. Guess what I saw? A busy school with parents picking up their kids. Teachers were giving directions to the kids to find their parents. Kids were running up to the parents and kept talking. Some people were taking pictures of their kids in front of the entrance to memorize this special day. And there was the bright yellow school bus picking up kids to go home. I felt happy and sad at the same time. I was happy because, finally, the kids were going back to their classrooms to meet friends and teachers. I was sad because I also wanted to be there in a BIG classroom with my backpack on my back. Tuesday was different. We didn’t even go to school because I went to my friend’s backyard to play in a bouncing house. But don’t worry, we caught up on Wednesday. There was no school so we got a good chance to take a window visit. It is so cool that each class has its own entrance. Teachers used chalk art and made cute arrows to guide students to keep their distance while entering the classroom. It was so kind and warm. What impressed me the most was in each classroom there were more desks and chairs than I expected. I thought it might only be a few sets since a lot of kids are still learning online like me, but surprisingly there were more than 10 almost in all the rooms we could see. It looked cool and full of hope. I could imagine myself sitting in the class and doing my math worksheet in the Fall. When we were walking back home, there were just so many plans for school days in my mind, and I wanted to say “Wait for me, my dear school!” Thursday my mom and I didn’t go to school either. We just walked around the neighborhood. It’s like all the even numbered days we don’t walk to school. Tuesday stands for 2 and Thursday stands for 4! So we had to take the school walk no matter what on Friday. It was a beautiful day outside with a few clouds, but mostly a light blue sky. On the sidewalk, I found so many dandelions! My mom told me a saying that if you make a wish and blow your dandelions in one whip, your wish will come true. So I tried my best…whoooooooooosh…all the little feathers flew into the air like little ballerinas dancing in the sky. This was not the only excitement; we met Mr. Grogg and his son in the pond! They were sitting together in the shining bright sun. Wait, was that snow falling? Oh, NO! That was just flower petals blown from cherry blossom trees. Everything is growing in spring. Kids started to come out to play in the school playground. I saw them playing on the basketball court, sliding down from the slides and swinging in the high swings. What a perfect Friday, not to mention my favorite show would be on at night. Yay! Saturday was another perfect day to go on a bike ride. Different from the weekdays, I got to go bike riding with my friends! We first started the ride around the front parking lot of our school. “Click, Click, Clack, Click, Click, Clack…” I could hear my bike chain making sounds while I was pedaling hard. The boys pretended this was a race. They went at a turbo speed to beat us, the girls. But it seemed like we didn’t care at all. While we enjoyed talking about random stuff, we finally crossed the finish line even though it wasn’t a race :). The boys decided to run a few more laps while my friend and I found something more interesting. We went onto the green grass and I watched my friend do a bunch of super gymnastics moves. We even created a cool handstand giggly wiggly dance. Everyone laughed so hard that, basically, all the kids came to join the game. This was the BEST afternoon of all time. Even though it might be a difficult time in the pandemic, if we wear a mask, and keep our distance, it will still feel like how
Saturday Newsletter: April 17, 2021
“Entrapped” (colored pencil), by Andralyn Yao, 12 (West Lafayette, IN), and published in the April 2021 Issue of Stone Soup A note from William First quarterly reading by Stone Soup authors! Tomorrow, Sunday, April 18, at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern). Public readings of poetry and prose are a standard part of the life of established authors. Please come to listen to fabulous fiction and poetry—and to show support for our authors. We estimate the program will last around thirty to forty minutes. I want it to be simple for you to attend, so you can also click on the direct Zoom link here. Writing Prompt Reminder: Writing prompts are sent out every Monday along with news on the monthly flash fiction contest. If you are not on the list, sign up at this link. The past 147 prompts are on our website. You will also find them from the link. If you are a teacher, use them in your classroom. Spring Writing Workshop: The Spring Writing Workshop sessions started today. We now have two classes, one that I teach and one being taught by Conner Bassett. There are a few places in each of the classes. If you want to try out a class to see whether you like it, then please contact tayleigh@stonesoup.com. She will get you the link for next week. Summer classes: Summer school enrollment for the joint Stone Soup–Society for Young Inklings Summer Writing Program is open. The novel workshop is full. A second novel workshop has just been started. Poetry class: Emma Wood, our Stone Soup editor, is a working poet. She is teaching a poetry class in the summer program. It is the first class she has taught through Stone Soup. If you are a poet, then jump on this class while it is still open. If you have a friend who is also writing poetry, tell them about the class and you can take it together. Stone Soup Refugee Project: I have not written about the Stone Soup Refugee project for some time. This is the project we started inspired by former Stone Soup writer and blogger Sabrina Guo. For the last nearly six months, we have been building out a part of our website for the creative work of refugee students. The site is finally finished! It is currently being reviewed by our contact at the United National High Commission on Refugees. When they approve it, we will share it with you—and then take a deep breath—to move the project into its next phase. Reading and writing project: The Cookie Jar, the opening of which is below, is an astonishingly original and powerful piece of fiction. If you are an adult reader of this newsletter, and if you read novels for pleasure, then please read the story. This is not “student” writing. This is writing. Full stop! Isabella Chapman offers us a brilliant portrait of a character who has formed an attachment to a cookie jar. As improbable as this sounds, Isabella pulls it off. We feel along with the Elsie, the main character, and we feel for those around her. There is so much to say about this work! The character is fully imagined, as are the places where the story unfolds. Super realistic and evocative description of the beach scene, for example. A strikingly large and carefully chosen vocabulary. As you read the story, I’d like you to pay attention to place—the where the story is taking place. Also, pay attention to how carefully Isabella has worked out the story’s emotional logic—like explaining why Elsie kept the cookie jar in the duffel bag. For this weekend’s project, I want you to create a character who has an unusual interest, obsession, or focus. A character who does things differently. A great story, like this one, explores a theme—in this case, explores this child’s unusual obsession—by letting us experience it. Isabella doesn’t write, “Here is this eccentric character.” Instead, she brings us into Elsie’s world so that we see through Elsie’s eyes and Elsie’s feelings. For inspiration, perhaps there is someone you know who has an eccentric interest or an eccentric attachment to something, like Elsie and her cookie jar. Or just someone—or, as this is fiction, it could be an animal—who acts differently from others. Write your piece from the point of view of the eccentric character so that for them, the behavior is normal. Good luck! If you super like what you create, then please send it to Stone Soup so Emma can consider it for publication in the magazine. Until next week, Congratulations to our most recent Flash Contest Winners! Our April Flash Contest was based on our weekly creativity prompt #147 written by Stone Soup ’20–21 Intern Sage Millen. Her prompt, which asked participants to visit the same spot every day for a week and record what they saw—whether through art, photography, or writing—generated a wide array of fabulous submissions, from daily photographic representation of a lounging house cat to ultra-scientific observation notes reminiscent of natural science journals. Thank you to all who submitted their stunning work, and thanks again to Sage for providing us with the prompt! Congratulations to our winners and honorable mentions, listed below. You can read the winning entries for this contest (and previous ones) at the Stone Soup website. Winners “The Tales of Freeman Gardens” by Claire Liotta, 12 (Glen Ridge, NJ) “Dolly’s Home” by Elizabeth Sabaev, 10 (Forest Hills, NY) “Observing My Backyard” by Rishan Chakraborty, 11 (Portland, OR) “The Island” by Madeline Cleveland, 11 (Belleville, WI) “Over the Ditch” by Daniel Shorten, 10 Honorable Mentions “Magnolia Bliss” by Pranjoli Sadhukha, 11 (Newark, OH) “My Backyard” by Reena Bao, 11 (Bedford, MA) “Times of the Day in My Room” by Chelsea Liang, 11 (San Jose, CA) “My Description Paragraphs for Six Days” by Diya Chakrabarti, (Portland, OR) “Our Playground” by Tang Li, 8 (Palmetto Bay, FL) “Interesting” by Ava Shorten, 11 Selected for the Stone Soup COVID-19 Blog “My School” by Feifei Wan, 9 (Portland, OR) Selected for the Stone Soup Blog “Spring in Central Park” by Lila Laton (New York, NY) Writing Classes and Book
