New York by Destan Cevher, 7 (New York, NY), published in Stone Soup February 2020 A note from Sarah When I saw Destan’s wonderful cityscape of New York from the February issue, I was reminded of the power of landscapes to depict a place so specifically, even if you’ve only been there a handful of times, or maybe not at all. Destan’s piece doesn’t include the classic New York landmarks that identify the city right away, but it does convey Destan’s interesting impression of the city through its composition and colors. I decided to make this newsletter more about images rather than words, so I’ve chosen a few pieces of art from the Stone Soup archives that also illustrate a place. Scroll down to see them, and visit the website if you’d like to see more. Quays of the Seine by Monique Huck,13, from the September/October 1995 issue Yosemite by Michelle Bjerke, 10, from the March/April 1978 issue My Village by Maria Santay Juarez, 13, the cover of the May/June 2002 issue Which Way Car Wash by Nicholas Taplitz, 13, from the November 2019 issue Of course, you don’t necessarily need to rely on the world around you to create art—it can be fun sometimes to imagine new worlds. But, sometimes what is in front of you is a good place to start. Try to describe your environment or represent it in an art piece, and please consider submitting your work to Stone Soup! 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! Daniel writes about “a shocking study” that shows that excessive cell phone use is . . . good for you?! Read “Phone Addiction is Strengthening Our Brain” for Daniel’s satirical take on our phone-obsessed world. Another travelogue from Vivaan on the blog! This time, he’s in Venice, Italy, a floating city where you take boats instead of buses. Read Vivaan’s account of his time in Venice, plus some history of the “magnificent” city. Try out a new game where you are a stem cell scientist and review it for the Stone Soup blog! Dish Life, a new, free game (“part Sims, part Tamagotchi”) was launched this week by researchers at Cambridge University. Dish Life is “a lab in your phone” designed as a fun way for young people to learn more about stem cells, and about what it’s really like to be a scientist working with a team in a lab. They want it to offer new ideas and tell new stories for imagining what a scientist does and looks like. We know that a lot of today’s Stone Soup readers are going to be tomorrow’s great scientists, and that you all appreciate a good story, so what do you think? Does Dish Life give you a new insight into the scientific life? Did it spark some new ideas in a subject area you didn’t know much about before? Is a game a good way to share this kind of information and build experience? The creators made a Youtube trailer where you, your family, and your teachers can find out more about the game, and there are preview versions for Android and iOS that you can download for free. So, if you decide to give it a try have something to say about it, why not write us a review? You can submit a review of Dish Life (or any other game!) to the blog category on our submission page. If we like it, we’ll publish it online. From Stone Soup February 2020 The Life of Beverly Henderson By Jamison Freis, 12 (Thousand Oaks, CA) (Illustrated by Destan Cevher, 7 (New York, NY)) I was born in 1950 and a few hours after I was born, my mom died—or so I was told. We were in Ketchum, Idaho. My name is Beverly Henderson. I am part Irish and the rest of me is all American. My father was disappointed when I was born because he wanted a boy. He put me in an orphanage. I never saw him again, but I have small pictures of him in my head. He was handsome, with brown hair, brown eyes, and tan skin. His skin was so smooth that it made butter feel rough. I lived with him for three years. At the orphanage, I went to a cheap school, and they fed us cold food, they had rats in the classroom, and I was one of the only girls. The only other girls were Lily and some other girl I never learned the name of. She was quiet as a mouse and graceful as a pigeon. Lily, however, was nice. She was nine years old at the time. Lily lived with a poor family, and she had one brother, two sisters, and her mom was pregnant with one more. …/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.
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Saturday Newsletter: February 22, 2020
Arch of Life (iPhone X)Sloka Ganne, 10 (Overland Park, KS), published in Stone Soup February 2020 A note from William First, some updates. Refugee art and writing. Work is coming in. As one would expect, graphic art is more common than written work. If any of you have any connections with refugee projects anywhere in the world, including on the southern US border, that you have not shared with us, please write to the project coordinator, Laura Moran: laura@stonesoup.com. Facebook/Instagram advertising. We are going to start an advertising program at Facebook and Instagram. If any of you are whizzes at social media advertising and think you might be able to help, then write to me, William, at newsletter@stonesoup.com. Thank you. Arch of Life. Arches are funny things. It is in their nature to suggest a passing through—a journey’s beginning or end. This photograph of the arch in St. Louis says to me, “possibilities.” What does it say to you? I want you to hold that thought, and then grab a phone or camera and take a photograph that expresses that same idea. If you like what you come up with a lot, submit it to Emma for consideration for Stone Soup. Stone Soup bloggers. I am so proud of our Stone Soup bloggers. We started the blogs a couple years ago in order to expand the kind of writing we can publish. Stone Soup will always stay a literary magazine of fiction, art, and poetry. The blogs are where young writers can publish book reviews, essays, how-to projects, works on sports, science, etc. The blogs have no content or genre restrictions. I’d like you to look through recent blogs. The recently published essay “What Can We Learn About History from Objects” by Mohan Li is a thought-provoking work. This particular post is probably more appropriate for our older Stone Soup readers and for adults, but you will all find writing in the Stone Soup blogs that will interest you. Mohan’s essay discusses a really fundamental human problem: We live, we may do fabulous things, but then we die. What is left? Historians struggle with this. How can we learn about the past when most knowledge dies with people? As a practical matter, objects that can last, like objects made out of rock, are often all this is left from ancient times, even though those times were filled with interesting people doing interesting things. Historians often only have physical objects to use to try to understand what life was like in the past. Read this essay, and then I want you to look around your house, or outdoors, for an object that is solid enough to survive for a few hundred years, at least. This has to be something that doesn’t use electricity and isn’t made of anything that can rot or rust away. Imagining yourself in the future. What story does that object tell? I think the flash fiction format would we appropriate for this writing project. See what you can do with 250 words. If Mohan’s essay inspires your thinking, and you’d like to read more speculations based on objects, then I can recommend a book that Mohan is likely to have read: A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor, a former director of London’s British Museum. If you are age 13 and under, then you can blog for Stone Soup. Go to the submissions page and make a proposal. 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! This week, Abhi reviewed Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. “It changed my perspective not only about the genre of fantasy, but also about books themselves,” Abhi writes. Read the review to find out why Abhi was so affected by the book. Bargain Back Issues! Did you know that we reduce the prices of Stone Soup back issues in our online store? Any issue published over six months ago is reduced by 25%—that’s $5 per issue, instead of $7.50. And issues over 12 months old are half price, just $3.75 each. The cover date may be 2018 or 2019, but the content in Stone Soup never gets old, and you can’t beat the feeling of holding one of our beautiful magazines in your hands. Why not give the print edition of the magazine a try, or build up your collection of back issues, at a bargain price? From Stone Soup February 2020 The Angel By Bo-Violet Vig, 13 (Los Angeles, CA) What a little angel she is Whisper the Jewish Sunday-school ladies behind gloved hands As I flounce down the hall All dressed up in my blue silk party dress, the one with the frills on the bottom Another gift from Daddy’s friends in Chicago A special dress for a special girl like you My proud parents beam with pride when I stand behind the microphone in the school auditorium: Oh, say can you see . . .? The only first-grader allowed up on stage What good manners she has The waitress at the diner smiles over the counter at me when I ask for a straw These are the three keys—thank you, you’re welcome, and may I please . . . …/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.
Saturday Newsletter: February 15th, 2020
Fall Portrait (Painter Essentials 5) By Mia Fang, 13 (West Lafayette, IN), published in Stone Soup February 2020 A note from William I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. I am in Belgium, land of chocolate! Yesterday, it snowed! As a native coastal Californian, I have only seen snow falling a few times in my life, so I was very excited! Big soft pieces of frozen water falling from the sky. Amazing! This snow I just experienced brings me to a belated snow-related announcement: I’d like to announce that Analise Braddock, Stone Soup artist and poet, won a prize last November in a poetry contest sponsored by the New York Botanical Garden in partnership with the Poetry Society of America. The contest was judged by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. So congratulations to you, Analise, for having your snow-related poem “Tall and Proud” selected for this award. Analise is in third grade. Tall and Proud Tall and proud they stand Up at the top the wind dances while snow gently patters down to the world Lights flicker and the snow falls bringing warmth to everyone If you listen, you can hear the skyscrapers and the snow speaking Puzzling or not puzzling they know what they are saying There they stand tall and proud This many-layered poem makes an observation well-suited to poetry: “If you listen, you can hear the skyscrapers and the snow speaking.” With this line, Analise opens up the whole idea of our built environment—whether it is skyscrapers, houses, cars, roads, anything made by us humans—communicating with the natural world. Let this thought work through your imagination. Where does this thought take you? Can your imagination take you to a place where buildings and snow can talk with each other? Can your imagination take you to a place where roads and rain have a connection? Airplanes and the sky? Your answer can certainly be “no” or “maybe.” Read Analise’s poem several times. See where her images and ideas take you, and create a story, poem, picture, or photograph of your own that deals with the intersection of nature and our built environment. 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! Apple is a huge company, and it claims to have adopted eco-friendly practices. Blogger Daniel dives into these in his blog post from this week: “Is Apple Really as Green as it Seems?” Even though Daniel admits the company has made strides, he argues there’s still a lot more it can do. Have you ever enjoyed a book, even though based on the cover you thought it might be too childish? Lucinda, 13, reviews Girls Who Code: Spotlight on Coding Club and writes about how she was pleasantly surprised with the book, which dealt with tough topics like anxiety and the absence of parents. From Stone Soup February 2020 The Old Woman By Rachel Ding, 13 (Cupertino, CA) Illustrated by Mia Fang, 13 (West Lafayette, IN) Once, there was a little girl with two pigtails. She was a joy to all those around her and was constantly happy. Her backpack was a bright red, and her shoes were a colorful pink. Her small feet carried her across a new street, and she skipped and skipped her way toward a woman who wore a placid face and held a silence that even the innocent little girl could hear. The woman didn’t look up, but instead kept on raking those beautiful autumn leaves. The girl passed by with the smallest glance at the strange woman and then skipped all the way to her first day of school. At school, she learned and learned and played and played. The girl lost her pigtails and then her ponytail and finally had her hair down straight. She was one moment the happiest person on Earth, then the next moment crying through school. She was in a constant state of tears and laughter and much-regretted idleness. She stopped her skipping after a year and started running after three, for bullies ran fast. But in time, she slowed down to a walk. Her red backpack was lost and so was her green one, and at some point she had none. And finally, after all that change, winter came, and she went down the street again. She was nervously walking, tripping over her heels and carrying a stack of books. She headed toward the old woman whose face remained unchanged except for her hair, which had become grey. By then, the woman walked with a limp …/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.
