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A Wish for a Brighter Tomorrow (IbisPaint on IPad)By Chloe Mancini, 9 A note from Jane Book Contest countdown has commenced! We can’t wait to receive your manuscripts, and we’re sure many of you are taking this part of the summer to work hard on your books—maybe revising, adding some finishing touches, or even adding a whole new section or group of poems. The deadline is midnight PDT on Monday, August 10. Happy writing! One of the things that has brightened up the past few months for me has been working on the Stone Soup COVID-19 blog. You have sent us poems, stories, journal entries, commentaries, cartoons, photographs, and artwork. Some are hopeful, some are sad; some are reflective, others issue a challenge; many are beautiful, and some even make us laugh! It’s so interesting to look back and see what our contributors were thinking and saying about this situation three or four months ago, and what they are saying today—some things have changed, and a lot has stayed the same, and everyone’s feelings are shifting around all the time. But the fact that you are all using this time to create and reflect is really inspiring. We hope you will continue to send us your work and read it on the blog every day, as well as enjoy all the great work in the magazine. Chloe Mancini’s artwork, above, is a terrific example of the power of many of the pieces on our COVID-19 blog. It takes real skill to make digital artwork like this, where you actually sense the emotion of the subject. We all know that feeling when your eyes are just brimming over with tears. I really feel for this girl as she stands in the moonlight wishing on a glowworm (or at least that’s how I read it!), and I sincerely join her in her wish for a brighter tomorrow! Andrew Li’s story, below, is another of this week’s special pieces from the blog. What a creative leap it is to take the perspective of a surgical mask as a way of reflecting on the current situation! We have spent a lot of time talking about perspective and characterisation in our Daily Creativity prompts and at our writing workshop, and this is  a really lovely example of taking a quirky perspective in order to look at a known situation in a new way. For this weekend’s activity, I suggest we follow Andrew’s lead and look at the world from the perspective of an inanimate object. It doesn’t have to be anything to do with COVID-19! I think I might try writing something from the perspective of one of my kittens’ toys (Kimchi, now almost 4 months old). When she isn’t jumping on my keyboard or tracing the tracks of my mouse pointer on my screen with her paw, she can chase a ribbon for hours. If that piece of red satin had feelings, I’m sure it would be both exhausted and upset to have been (slightly) shredded by those claws . . . Have some fun with this exercise, and if you are happy with what you write, please send it to us! Until next time, Winners from Weekly Flash Contest #15 Weekly Flash Contest #14: Write a story or poem inspired by a Renoir painting. Our entrants wrote a story or poem inspired by Renoir’s painting this week. We received more entires than we expected and, as always, enjoyed reading all of the writings that were submitted. It was fun to see how differently many of you approached imagining going into the scene in the painting: the judges read everything from mystery stories to poems written from the perspective of the lamps in the trees (a couple of our Highly Commended choices)! One of our winning writers this week also sent an updated version of the painting, apparently made for her by Renoir himself, to go with her story (thanks, Ruby!). Winners “The Brendon Disappointment” by Lucy Berberich, 11, Oxford, OH “Paris in a Painting” by Fern Hadley, 11, Cary, NC “Let There Be Cake!” by James Hou, 10, Short Hills, NJ “Summer Day” by Samuel McMullin, 10, Portland, ME “A Taste of Bal du Moulin de la Galette” & its illustration, Travelling back to Moulin de la Galette, by Ruby Xu, 10, Annandale, VA Honorable Mentions “Lost Lisette in a Crowd” by Joyce Hong, 10, Oakville, ON “Allia T. and the Case of the Disappearing Violinist” by Naomi Kap, 11 “An Atypical Guest at the Moulin de la Galette” by Amruta Krishnan Srinivasan, 9, San Jose, CA “Mama’s Mask” by Michela You, 11, Lexington, MA “The Journal Entry of a Pessimistic Person” by Charlotte Zhang, 11, Portland, OR Congratulations to our winners and honorable mentions, listed below. You can read the winning entries for this week (and previous weeks) at the Stone Soup website. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Amruta, 9, answered the Daily Creativity prompt where we asked you to imagine COVID-19 as a supervillain. Take a look at her illustration on the blog. Callum’s poem “Static” plays with the two meanings of the word. Read the poem and Callum’s explanation of his time in quarantine. Read Anya’s update from the 12th and 13th meetings of the Stone Soup Book Club. Most recently, the book club has been discussing Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed, and the next book on the list is Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson. Daniel, 10, reviewed Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover. Read what Daniel thinks about the book that deals with family, grief, and basketball. Saanvi, 8, wrote an adventure story with an evil Captain Corona as the villain. Can you guess what the character represents? Have you ever been to Portugal? Vivaan continues his travelogue series with a post about his visit to the European country. Check out the post to read about Vivaan’s experiences and see some photographs of notable sights. We published an artwork by Chloe, 9, titled A Wish for a Better Tomorrow. What kind of emotions does the piece evoke for you? Read some of

“Orange Landscape” by Eli Breyer Essiam, 10 (Cambridge, MA) Published in Stone Soup July/August 2018 A note from William A quick note to begin: the second session for the Stone Soup and Society of Young Inklings summer writing camps is still open. If you might be interested, check out the schedule. The classes are starting again soon. “Wildfire.” The elegant poem by Karinne Ulrey we are featuring today, paired with Orange Landscape by Eli Breyer, speaks to the power of words to change the world. But it also speaks to the need to remain focused with one’s message—a single word, a single sentence, may not be enough. This is true whether one is thinking about changing society as a whole or in just changing oneself. And, of course, sometimes the spark never actually takes. The pairing of Eli’s painting with Karinne’s poem helps me see it as a complex work of art: The painting’s focus is on orange. Eli has done a beautiful job of working with orange tonalities. Imagine the painting with blues, or greens, or yellows. It would then be a very different painting. Paired with the poem, we read the orange as fire. But one can also read it as a landscape bathed in the hopeful light of dawn or the dying light of a vivid sunset. The sky can be read as smokey flames or as the orange light of sunset glowing in the fog, a common sight where I live in coastal Northern California. Eli’s landscape is well imagined and alive with detail—the trees on the crest of the hill, different styles of building, roads, a windmill. One can get lost in this painting: a dreamscape. Saturday project When an artist works in a limited palette, it is called working in a monochrome—mono meaning “one” and chrome meaning “color.” Artists rarely limit themselves to a single color; rather, like Eli, they work in a range of hues within a limited color range. This weekend, I want you to use colored pencils, markers, pens, or paint to create a scene with a single dominant color. Like keys in music, your choice of color will affect the feelings and emotions that your painting evokes. As always, if you like what you do, go to our Stone Soup website and send it to our editor, Emma, to review for possible publication. Refugee Project news To remind you. Several of you generously donated money toward Stone Soup’s Refugee Project. Our goal had been to have a special issue of Stone Soup made up of work by refugee students this past spring. It isn’t just the pandemic that has caused the deadline to slip. It is taking time to build the relationships we need to bring in the work that will speak to the world. Laura Moran, who is in charge of this project, is doing a fabulous job maintaining momentum. We are talking with our web designers about designing a section of the website for some of the material we have received. To be honest, our web designers are very slow!  We are working with them on a general redesign of the site, including a space for refugee material. All I can say is that we are more impatient than you to see the site improved. Though some of what has been sent to us is exceedingly disturbing, and we have several poems in Arabic that we are having translated, I think we will be able to start sharing material with you within a couple months. Subscriptions The very best way to support Stone Soup is by subscribing. If you aren’t a subscriber, please join with us this weekend. Inspired by the poem “Wildfire,” I am asking you to join with us in all the great things we are doing with and for young writers and artists. Thank you. Until next week, Winners from Weekly Flash Contest #14 Weekly Flash Contest #14: Write a poem or a story where a sudden change in the weather provides a pivotal point. The week commencing June 29 (Daily Creativity Prompt #71) was our fourteenth week of flash contests—and we would not have guessed so many of you would be inspired by the weather! We had a record number of entries (more than 50 this week, and we were, as usual, very impressed). Everyone brought to life various weather events, from blizzards to rainstorms, in varying forms—from poems (including concrete poems) to prose. The judges had a hard time battling through all that weather, but in the end we emerged, windswept and drenched, into the warm sunshine of decisions made. Well done to everyone who entered, but particular congratulations to those who made it with us through the storm as honorable mentions and winners. You can read the winning entries for this week (and previous weeks) at the Stone Soup website. Winners “Cabin Catastrophe” by Isabel Bashaw, 10, Enumclaw, WA “Michi and Kieto” by Lucy Berberich, 11, Oxford, OH “Transformation” by Sofie Dardzinski, 9, Potomac, MD “A Line of Cars” by Wesley Moniz, 9, Belmont, MA “The Hotel of Angels” by Emerson Swift, 12, Mill Valley, CA Honorable Mention “The Flower’s Lesson” by Audrey Fan, 10, Cary, NC “Driftwood on the Sea” by Meleah Goldman, 10, Oakland, CA “Rain” by Misha Nasarpuri, 12, Portland, OR “Rose After Rain” by Amruta Krishnan Srinivasan, 9, San Jose, CA “The Money Rain” by Cici Zou, 11, Concord, MA Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! In her cartoon “The Virus Should Bring Us Closer,” Rebecca, 9, notes that even though we can’t physically close to others, we can still connect virtually. Michaela, 12, writes her story “The Writer, Artist of Words,” about a writer struggling in quarantine, in the unusual second-person narration style. In her blog post, Vivian writes about how schools should step up and offer gender-neutral bathrooms for their non-binary and transgender students. Manasi, 12, wrote about about how coronavirus has changed our lives: “Something feels different, go away COVID-19.” Though we’ve published reviews of the entire Harry Potter series,

“Fall” by Alyssa Wu, 12 (Pleasanton, CA) Published in the July/August 2020 issue A note from Sarah New Issue What a special summer issue we have this year! I highly recommend reading the lovely poetry by Analise Braddock and Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer that makes up the July/August 2020 issue and that won them both second place in last year’s book contest. You can also support them by buying e-book versions of their books. Both young writers create such eloquent, thought-provoking poems that deserve to be read over and over again. Black Lives Matter Although we might not be hearing as much about the Black Lives Matter protests in the news, I encourage everyone to continue to educate themselves and work towards being anti-racist. If you missed KidLit4BlackLives Rally, I suggest watching the video recording. The rally featured bestselling middlegrade authors like Jason Reynolds, Jacqueline Woodson, and Kwame Alexander. We’ve published some reviews of their books but are always looking for more! Consider submitting a review if you’ve read something by them before or picking up one of their books from the bookstore or library. Weekend Challenge The other day, my roommates and I had a spirited discussion about what books we enjoyed when we were young. My suggestion is that you reflect on some of your favorite books and come up with a list of your top 10 or so. Think about why you choose each book. What is it the book that appeals to you? If you favor a certain genre, why is that? Do you tend to like books with a fast-paced plot, or do you prefer a slower narrative? It’s always worthwhile to consider why it is we like what we like. If the exercise inspires you, turn your list into a more in-depth essay and submit it to the Blog category! Lastly, welcome back to our editor, Emma, who began her gradual return from maternity leave this week! Until next week, Winners from Weekly Flash Contest #13 Weekly Flash Contest #13: Some of the earliest novels were written in the form of letters between characters (“epistolary novels”). Try writing a story as a series of text messages, group chats, emails, letters, or postcards exchanged between at least two characters.The week commencing June 22 (Daily Creativity prompt #66) was our 13th week of flash contests, with a challenge taking us back to one of the earliest forms of the novel: stories told through letters, or “epistolary novels.” Our entrants had the option to bring the form up to date using today’s equivalent of the letter (text messages, group chats, etc.), or to take themselves back in time with more formal writing evocative of a past age. The form was no limitation on the imagination shown in the stories these messages between character told. We loved reading the many entries that came in, and thank you all for participating. Special congratulations to this week’s winners and honorable mentions. Your work really stood out for its creative response and playfulness! You can read this week’s winners’ work below, and the all winning entries from previous weeks on the Flash Contest Winners Roll page. Winners “Letters to the President” by Prisha Aswal, 7, Portland, OR “Child of Magic” by Amelia Pozzo, 11, Arnold, MO “Apocalypse” by Ian Xie, 12, Weston, MA “Black and White” by Ella Yamamura, 12, Cary, NC “The Excuse” by Michela Yu, 11, Lexington, MA Honorable Mention “Well that escalated quickly . . .” by Lucy Berberich, 11, Oxford, OH “Venus and Mars and the search for Pluto” by Sara Shah, 8, Portland, OR “The Banter of the Bathroom Buddies” by Mihika Sakharpe, 11, Frisco, TX “Apple & Banana” by Kevin Zhang, 10, Lexington, MA Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! With a short simulation video, Rebecca, 9, shows how quickly the coronavirus can spread if social distancing measures aren’t practiced. Hooria, 6, wrote two poems, “COVID-19” and “Appreciating My Teacher,” about her experience during the pandemic. Samson, 12, wrote an impassioned review of his favorite book, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. Read the review to find out why Samson has read it three times already. Read some of the excellent work produced at our last Friday Writing Workshop, where the theme was to write about someone reading. In Kaitlyn’s poem “Then and Now,” she imagines what she would tell her past self before the coronavirus and what her future self might tell her. Adrianna, 8, wrote a prose poem about pasta sandwiches, birthdays, and missed weddings during the pandemic. Nisha highlights three exceptional women in her blog post “We are Better Than You Think.” Katie, 11, divided her poem “Going to the Beach” into three sections: “Yesterday,” “Today,” and “Tomorrow.” The poem contrasts the natural beauty of the beach with heartbreakig thoughts about coronavirus. Kathleen, 10, reviewed The Mole, the Boy, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. Read what Kathleen thinks of this illustrated book that features friendship as a prominent theme. Matilda, 6, hand-wrote a poem and included a small illustration to go with it. Read “Fish,” about COVID-19, fish, and school. Ella, 12, wrote a piece for the blog about her favorite painting: The Scream by Edvard Munch. Contest & Partnership News Book Contest Keep working on your manuscripts! Remember, the deadline for this year’s book contest is August 10! Reviewer wanted! We’re looking for a reviewer age 10 or younger to review a book for the blog, with the possibility of conducting an interview with the authors. If you’re interested in Indigenous stories from the Pacific Northwest, or want to learn more about them, please get in touch with Sarah (sarah@stonesoup.com) for more information! From the Stone Soup July/August 2020 The Code by Analise Braddock, 9 (Katonah, NY) The universe she is in has a code 719? Oh, she knows it The code is corrupt The trees are shaking Things are glitching They’re moving together No, the code is corrupt The universe is corrupt It is falling apart Read more poems from Analise