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“Little Mermaid” by Rebecca Wu, 9 (Medina, WA) A note from Sarah Did you catch Amanda Gorman’s powerful poem at the inauguration earlier this week? If not, I highly recommend you check it out here. Gorman is the first ever Youth Poet Laureate for the United States. And that’s not the only inaugural poem this week! Sofie Dardzinski, 10, wrote “Notes on our Nation,” which we published on our blog this week. Take a minute to read that one too, if you missed it. Though there is much that could be said about these two poems, I’m going to keep my analysis brief because I believe the words of these young poets speak for themselves. Thematically, these two poems cover similar territory. Both young poets wrestle with the inheritance of a divided, “unfinished” nation. Gorman presents us with visual metaphors, like a “never-ending shade” that has felt impossible to escape in recent years. In contrast, Sofie uses the language of music. “Dissonant chords and jagged notes” characterize the music that Americans have been playing, according to Sofie’s poem. And while both poets use expressive language to describe the “imperfect union” that is the United States, they also end on a hopeful note. I thought of both of these poems when I read Ronit Plank’s article in The Seattle Times about the hope she felt reading entries for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards (which some of our contributors have gone on to win). These are difficult times to grow up in, but as Plank notes, young writers prove again and again how “Writing, creating and thinking of another path forward is its own kind of light in the darkness.” Or as Gorman puts it, “For there is always light, / if we’re only brave enough to see it / if we’re only brave enough to be it.” 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! Pragnya, 12, reviewed Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly. Read her review to find out why she found the book full of interesting characters and relatable situations. As we mentioned above, Sofie wrote a lovely inaugural poem, “Notes on our Nation.” Take a few minutes to read it and reflect on her words. We posted another Stone Soup author interview to the blog! This time Anya interviewed Enni Harlan. The two young writers talk about writing novels, researching for historical fiction, and so much more. Vivaan writes about the enduring appeal of Sherlock Holmes, and why the character and his “Theory of Deduction” is so fascinating. From Stone Soup January 2021 Sawterra By Rose Amer, 10 (Belmont, MA) Illustrated by Rebecca Wu, 9 (Medina, WA) Sawterra had a terrible name. She wished she had been called something beautiful, like Janis or Jasmine. But no. She had to be named Sawterra. Sawterra, I am sorry to say, looked exactly like her name. She had matted brown hair, muck-green eyes, and a sallow, drooping face. She had a height of nearly six feet, but was far wider than she was tall. She was flabby and sallow and drooping, and she wished more than anything to be beautiful. One day, as Sawterra was walking along, dragging her feet in the mud, she came across a stone gargoyle stuck deep in the ground. It was a tangle of scaly gray legs and arms and claws and tails, and its huge, gaping mouth looked wide enough to swallow a bowling ball. Sawterra took a great liking to it, as it looked so much like herself. “I feel sorry for that gargoyle,” she said aloud, though no one else was around. “I know what it feels like to be ugly.” And she pulled the gargoyle out of the ground and carried it home in her thick, floppy arms. . . . /MORE   Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. 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.

“Music to my Ear” by Keira Zhang, 11 (Los Altos, CA) Published in Stone Soup January 2021 Illustrating “The Director” by Anya Geist, 13 (Worcester, MA) A note from William Waitlist for the Saturday Writing Workshop: The writing workshop begins next Saturday, Jan. 23. It is going to be a fun class. We are working with creativity and chance. Yes, we will be rolling dice! Enrollment was opened to existing class members last week, and 38 students have signed up. As I don’t want the class to get too big, we have closed off registration. If you want to take the class, then please register as soon as possible. You will be added to a waitlist. We will give priority to students who were in the class but haven’t yet registered. If you are in that situation, in addition to registering at EventBrite, please also write to Sarah at sarah@stonesoup.com. We will allow a few more students in, but only a literal few. If a student drops, we will fill that spot from the waitlist, so you do need to get on it to be considered for a spot in the future. Apologies! But we have to give priority to students who area already enrolled. Art: Firstly, Keira Zhang’s charcoal drawing, Music to my Ears, is just simply gorgeous. Look at it, letting your eye take it in. The drawing is also a technical tour de force. Such a beautiful, warm, and yet odd drawing! That ear! We love this drawing. Which is why it is the cover image for one of our sketchbooks. What else to say? This work is in a very old Western art tradition—the still life used as a learning tool. Studies of this kind used to be standard practice for people learning to draw. The style is now very rare. In fact, it is vanishingly rare to see such a young artist working in this traditional style. Large forms—including basic forms, like in this case a ball—illuminated with a strong light coming from a clear direction so that it casts sharp shadows. What is great about the still life for drawing students is that nothing moves! You set up your object, set the light so it shines on it to cast clear shadows, and then you start drawing: Eye. Hand. The strong light, which you see in this drawing, helps emphasize light and dark, which is what Keira was working with to create the illusion of dimensionality in her drawing. By working with I mean focusing on the light and dark and the tonalities in between to create the illusion of three-dimensional forms. The still life is the ultimate training in eye-hand coordination. Keira worked in charcoal. This offered her a medium that produces a rich, warm drawing while also being at least a little flexible. With charcoal, one can lighten patches that turned out too dark and darken patches that are too light. If you choose to use charcoal, you might consider looking at YouTube videos for some pointers on making a still life with charcoal. Weekend art project: A still life is the art project for the weekend. Yes, you can do this as a photograph if you wish. You can choose normal household objects or make something that is a bit odd, like Keira’s combination of a huge plaster ear, a ball, and a violin. Balls, triangles, and cubes are very common in this style of still life. For cubes, think of toy blocks or a piece of two-by-four. Whether you are using a camera or drawing, the lighting is the key. Strong lighting emphasizes volume. Strong lighting helps you, as the artist, to focus on light and dark as the way to render volume. The ball in Keira’s drawing looks round because of the very bright part of the ball in the center in contrast to the darker edges. Starting out just drawing a well-illuminated ball could be a good approach. Pay attention in Keira’s work to the contrast between the deep black and lighter portions of her drawing. There is no way you will achieve a finished charcoal drawing at this level on your first try, so my advice for this weekend it is to keep it simple: set up your scene with a clear, strong light source. More general advice: Stay relaxed! Don’t be overly critical! If you have never ever done this before, then consider seeking advice form YouTube. One suggestion I am sure you will encounter on YouTube is that you block out images with fuzzy lines—not crisp lines like in a coloring book but thicker, more forgiving approximate outlines. This will enable you to evolve the edges by letting you both add shading and pull shading away as your feel your way to the realistic outline. Courage! If you find yourself getting discouraged, then please stop and come back to the drawing later. Writing. “The Director,” the story below, is written by Anya Geist. Anya has been writing for Stone Soup for years and is now a Stone Soup intern. She also won the Editor’s Choice in the 2020 Stone Soup Long Form Book Contest. Anya helps post to the website, develop writing prompts, and is helping develop our forthcoming podcasts. Fortunately for Anya, but sadly for us, Anya is now in high school! I haven’t yet checked with Emma or with Anya, but my guess is that this is one of the last, if not the last piece that Anya will have published in Stone Soup. So, I would like to thank Anya for her fabulous writing and photography. Her contributions to Stone Soup will be long remembered—and will be read for years to come. Thank you! The story you find below, “The Director,” is, also a tour de force, like Keira’s drawing with which it is paired. There is just so much in this story to talk about—and so little space! What I am asking you all to do today is to click on the link

“Invisible to Human” by Emi Le, 13 (Millbrae, CA) Published in Stone Soup January 2021 Illustrating “The Alien Who Copied Everyone” by Dana Yehia, 8 (Sunnyvale, CA) A note from Jane Here in London, our mayor has declared an emergency. We are in lockdown, and our hospitals are full of COVID-19 patients. It’s cold and gray, and the streets are eerily quiet. What better time to be distracted by fiction, and art, especially some that takes me out of our own world and onto another one! There are so many intriguing things about Invisible to Human, the artwork featured in this week’s newsletter. Its title makes me stop and think as I focus on the strange, many-limbed creature on the right—maybe the human can’t see it, even with their flashlight apparently focused on it, but I get the feeling it can see the human! I find my eye constantly drawn into that big, single eye with its blue center, one of the only colorful things amid the different shades of gray. Looking at the whole image, I love the way Emi has used diagonal planes of light and dark to illustrate what is visible to each of the figures and what is not. The alien’s tentacle vanishes into the blackness of the human’s experience while the human steps forward into what they perceive as lonely darkness, behind and unable to see the presence of the creature the viewers are so aware of. It’s mysterious, and just a bit sinister. There is a higher resolution version of Invisible to Human (and all of our featured artworks) at our website, and I encourage you to click the link and view it there to really appreciate some of the details. Dana’s story, “The Alien Who Copied Everyone,” gives us a more lighthearted view of aliens and outer space—her alien eats, reads, and watches TV—with lots of comic touches, like the book the alien is reading called Life Full of Baloney, and crazy deadpan details like trash-throwing possums. But even this story ends on the mystery of a forever unanswered question. This weekend, create something that reflects on the mysteries of the galaxy. Maybe you will invent a whole planet and its inhabitants, like Dana, or draw what you imagine, like Emi. Perhaps you will use this as an opportunity to write something for this month’s Flash Contest (details below and on our website). For those of you who enjoy space facts along with your fiction, why not take some inspiration from this list of planned spaceflight in 2021. Enjoy a trip outside our everyday world, and as always, if you like what you produce, send it in for our editor, Emma, to see. Until next week, P.S. Booking is open for our new series of Writing Workshops and Book Club—more details below! Classes and contests! January Flash Contest This is the first week of January, which means it is Flash Contest week! You have until noon PST tomorrow (Sunday, January 10) to submit your entries. This month’s challenge is to write a short sincere-fiction story about a character that lives 100 years in the future. Click here for all the details, including how to submit. Writing Workshop & Book Club, Winter/Spring 2021 Booking is now open for our next ten sessions of writing workshop and book club, starting Saturday, January 23. You may either buy one ticket for all ten sessions, which works out at a slightly discounted price per session, or select individual sessions if you can’t attend them all. Subscribers attend at half price. For more details, and to book your places, visit Eventbrite. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Lucy, 13, reviewed Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance by Nikki Grimes. She writes, “If you are looking for a book that is thoughtful and thought-provoking, gracious and graceful, smart and spirited and soulful, Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance is a book that you should most definitely check out.” Abhi, one of our frequent contributors, reviewed a movie. Check out what he thinks of 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick.   From Stone Soup January 2021 The Alien Who Copied Everyone By Dana Yehia, 8 (Sunnyvale, CA) Illustrated by Emi Le, 13 (Millbrae, CA) There was once an alien who lived on a planet called Watercolors and wanted to be an explorer. But there was a little problem. The problem was that to be an explorer, you had to explore. But everyone on his planet already knew so much about the planet, it would be almost impossible to find something that hadn’t been explored on Watercolors. He knew he had to do something about it, so he started exploring day and night but couldn’t find anything that someone on his planet hadn’t explored yet. That’s about the time the poor little alien decided to give up. After all of that thinking, he felt a bit of hunger in his tummy. It was that type of hunger that made it feel as if your tummy is saying, “I want FOOD!” He felt like he’d caught the flu—his tummy was killing him—so he went to eat lunch. When he arrived, he saw the menu of his dreams! There was pizza, spaghetti, tomato soup, hamburgers, steak, fries, chicken, asparagus, artichokes, meatloaf, and even his very favorite meal—omelets! So, he got himself a spot in line. He waited for his turn, because that’s what a polite alien does. He waited in line for about ten minutes, but it felt like a hundred million years to him. . . . /MORE     Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. 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.