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“I, Grace Sadlon, sister of Chloë Sadlon, vow to never ever break the Sister Code” by Phoebe Wagoner, 11 (Carlisle, Kentucky), published in Stone Soup March/April 2015, illustrating “The Treehouse” by Ermeen Choudhury, 12 (Scarsdale, New York). A note from William Rubel I am very pleased to be able to announce that we have hired Laura Moran, a cultural anthropologist who has just published a book on her research with refugee children in Australia to lead the Stone Soup refugee project (see below). As most of you know, the first stage in this project is publishing a special issue of Stone Soup devoted to creative work by refugee children. If any of you know people working with refugee children, including with children caught up in US border enforcement actions on the Mexican border, please send Laura an email: laura@stonesoup.com. Stone Soup author Sabrina Guo, whose personal initiative is really the inspiration for this project, has been honored with an invitation to attend the 2020 Harvard Global Women’s Empowerment Expo with Laura Doggett, who is the American artist working with refugee children in the Za’atari camp in Jordan that Sabrina wrote about in a Stone Soup blog post. Congratulations Sabrina! On the subject of blogs. I haven’t put out a call for new blog authors in a while. Writing for our blog is different from writing for Stone Soup. Stone Soup is a literary magazine—so its focus is fiction, poetry, and art. In the blogs you can write on any subject you like so you have the freedom to explore other genres besides fiction and poetry. If you haven’t visited our blogs recently, please do. As you’d expect from Stone Soup writers, the quality of the blog entries is high. At the end of every year we select an issue’s worth of blog posts to include in our Annual. If you are interested in writing for our blog please go to the Stone Soup submissions page and submit a writing sample. On a personal note, I have been working in my garden over the past few weeks. There is an unused treehouse in a big plum tree which we are converting into a space for us adults to relax. It’s so much fun to climb the ladder and sit in the tree, so I was happy to see this illustration from a past issue of Stone Soup in this week’s Newsletter! Do you have a tree house? Why not spend some time in it and send us a picture of the view, or write something inspired by sitting up amongst the branches. Until next week, Current Contest: Personal Narrative The way we approach fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as both readers and writers, is drastically different. For this reason, we’re happy to announce that Stone Soup is partnering with  Society of Young Inklings in our very first nonfiction contest and that, in 2020, we will begin to publish all nonfiction under its very own label in the magazine. What makes this contest extra special is our partnership with Society of Young Inklings (SYI): we are very excited to share that their team of professional writers has designed a mentorship experience for both the youth and the educators who take part in this contest. Check out the details on our website here, including links to SYI’s video series to help in writing a personal narrative. Contest deadline is December 15th! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Maya writes a blog this week called “Playing in the Youth Orchestra.” Read about her experience preparing for performing a challenging piece for a concert. Remember Tristan Hui’s story “Coconut Pudding” from the November issue? She takes us behind the scenes in a post that details the inspiration for the story. Read more in “Coconut Pudding: Behind the Story.” We’re always accepting blog submissions through the Submittable category– if you know a young person with an interesting perspective, encourage them to submit their work! “I, Grace Sadlon, sister of Chloë Sadlon, vow to never ever break the Sister Code” From Stone Soup, March/April 2015 The Treehouse By Ermeen Choudhury, 12 (Scarsdale, New York) Illustrated by Phoebe Wagoner, 11 (Carlisle, Kentucky) Chloë. Chloë, wake up!” Grace poked her sister in the side, then gently shook her, barely able to contain her excitement. Chloë slowly opened one eyelid, and in seconds the two seven-year-olds were scampering out of the bedroom and down the hallway, leaf-dappled pajamas billowing on their small forms. After making sure their parents were asleep, they went out the back door together, giggling. The girls ran barefoot through swaying grass, scrambled up craggy rocks, maneuvered through a network of gangly trees, and finally, breathless, arrived at their destination. The treehouse stood tall and grand, silhouetted against the golden-orange sky, and the sisters ogled its brilliance for a while. A path of flat stones trailed up to the tree’s roots, and a flimsy rope ladder climbed up its length. Sitting amid a fountain of branches was the house, built of dark, ancient-looking planks of wood. “Come on. Let’s go!” Grace shrieked with delight, and began to skip from stone to stone. She was crawling up the first few rungs before Chloë snapped out of her trance and followed her. Before they entered the house, the girls stopped, their faces solemn. Grace went first. Placing a hand on her chest, she recited, “I, Grace Sadlon, sister of Chloë Sadlon, vow to never ever break the Sister Code. I will always be a loyal sister, and will never tell anyone the secrets of the treehouse.” Chloë opened her mouth, but before she could utter a sound Grace’s foot slipped on the rung above her and her leg swung around wildly as she tried to regain her footing. The ladder began to rock back and forth. “Grace, watch out!” Chloë screamed, but it was too late, and they both came crashing to the ground…./MORE Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc.,

Water Droplets by Anya Geist, 13 (Worcester, MA)Cover art from the Stone Soup November 2019 A note from Jane Levi Those of you with a print subscription to Stone Soup will by now have received your copy of the November issue with its wraparound cover art, Water Droplets, by Anya Geist, and many more of you will have seen the cover and the complete work of art online. If you read editor Emma’s letter at the beginning of the magazine, you will know that a lot of the work in this month’s issue is about ideas of home. As you probably know, I am from the UK, so this gray, wet-looking image sums up a big part of my expectations of November “at home.” I know that lots of our readers live in similar climates, so you will know what I mean . . . Actually, I am in the United States just now—and Santa Cruz, California, is anything but wet at the moment—but I am pretty confident that when I get back to London next weekend it won’t be long before I will be looking out my window and seeing a live version of Anya’s photograph! One of the things I love about this piece of work is the way it is a mixture of the very specific—a clear and precise record of drops of water on (I assume) glass or tile—and the abstract. We can’t see the edges of the surface the water droplets are on, so even with the clarity of the image a lot is left to our imaginations to work out. Without knowing the title, the photograph could be many things: a close-up of bubbles in a tank, or even a piece of concrete. Although it is plain-looking and ostensibly simple, it is very beautiful, and it is thought-provoking. I find it calming and meditative to look at, in the way just sitting and staring out of the window in your favorite spot at home can be when you need to pause and think through what you are going to write next, or when you need to digest a problem. Thank you, Anya, for a terrific cover! Thinking about returning to the UK, I also appreciate Analise Braddock’s poem “Days” in the November issue, where “The gray is space or a planet,” and in the end “It is time to return.” Maybe this weekend you can take some time to sit and stare and think about home, think about places you would like to return to, and write, draw, or photograph something that encapsulates those thoughts and ideas. As always, send it to us if you are happy with it. Until next time, Current Contest: Personal Narrative The way we approach fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as both readers and writers, is drastically different. For this reason, we’re happy to announce that Stone Soup is partnering with  Society of Young Inklings in our very first nonfiction contest and that, in 2020, we will begin to publish all nonfiction under its very own label in the magazine. What makes this contest extra special is our partnership with Society of Young Inklings (SYI): we are very excited to share that their team of professional writers has designed a mentorship experience for both the youth and the educators who take part in this contest. Check out the details on our website here, including links to SYI’s video series to help in writing a personal narrative. Contest deadline is December 15th! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Two book reviews posted on the blog this week! Daniel, 10, reviews the children’s classic A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle, with a special focus on the fictional world of Camazotz. Would you want to live in a place with peace and order, but without any freedom? Leave a comment on his post! Did you watch the movie Hidden Figures? Vivaan, 10, reviews the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, which the movie was based on. Read Vivaan’s thoughts about the “very inspiring” book, in his words. Our Fall Fundraiser, 2019: The Refugee Project We are raising funds to support the production and publication of creative work by children in refugee camps around the world. We have already almost reached our target of $5,000 to support workshops run by and for kids in camps, a special issue of Stone Soup, and associated projects—and we want to keep going! You have already helped us fund workshops in the Za’atari camp and put us in touch with other great organizations we can work with to expand our efforts. Please help us raise the money to continue this work. You can read more about this initiative on our website and help us by sharing the link with others. Thank you. From Stone Soup, November 2019 Days By Analise Braddock, 8 (Katonah, NY) Illustrated by Anya Geist, 12 (Worcester, MA) The nights are long The days are short A breeze is blown A day is a day. It can’t be reliven Make today today Tomorrow is tomorrow The gray is space or a planet. A cold breeze sweeps by It is time to return   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.

  Which Way Car Wash by Nicholas Taplitz, 13 (Los Angeles, CA)Published in Stone Soup November 2019, illustrating “A Monarch’s Way” by Alexa Rivera Rockwood, 12 (Potomac, MD) A note from William Rubel Before talking about this photograph and the story “A Monarch’s Way Through,” I want to once again thank all of you who contributed to our Refugee Project drive. Thanks to your help, we will soon have a hiring announcement of someone who will join our staff to work on the project. If you haven’t read Alicia Xin’s blog post, “Thoughts on Jewish Refugees in Shanghai,” then please do. Alicia makes an explicit connection between past and present refugees. There is a blog section in every Newsletter. I just want to remind all of you to check out our Stone Soup blogs, and to leave comments. Thank you. The photo! Besides it being a perfect match for the story about the monarch butterfly facing urban barriers on its way to Mexico (which you will find, below), this is an extraordinary work of art. As you look at this photograph, I want you to imagine yourself framing this image. What are you looking for? Why do you press the button to take the photograph when the scene is framed just so? What are you lining up? As you imagine yourself shooting this image, I think you will find you will find that Nicholas Taplitz, the photographer, is guiding you. Let’s start by looking at the flat surfaces that sit parallel to the ground, like tabletops. There is the roof of the UPS truck, the top of the sign that says “Car Wash” and has the red arrow, the top of the big sign, etc. Of course, there is also the ground. Then, there are the vertical surfaces that are perpendicular to the ground: I’d say there are the vertical sides you can see, like part of one side of the UPS truck and the side of the big sign in the middle, the sign with the pigeons on top, and then there are verticals you cannot see but that you can imagine. Nicholas seems to be helping us see this scene as one being composed of rectangular shapes. A scene in which the flat surfaces, or planes, create patterns that we can see and that we cannot see but can imagine. The way the photograph is framed, at first it can be hard to understand the space—then you see, Wow! There is that tiny chair down there on the right, and the UPS truck on the street—and then you realize that this photo is taken from a very high vantage point. You will also begin to notice the colors—the red of the arrow, the faded red of the car wash sign, the bright red of the $49.99. The yellow of the UPS letters, of the first sign by the truck, and of the painted car-stop by the chair. So much to look at! For this weekend’s main project, I want you to take your phone or camera and look for a scene that you can frame to bring out its geometric structure—rectangles in the case of Nicholas’s photograph, but you might find something with lots of curves, or straight or squiggly lines. The point is that I want you to look beyond the subject of the photograph to something that one might say is more universal, that is larger than your subject. What I mean by this is that Nicholas’s photograph is of a car wash, but it is not really about a car wash. The photograph doesn’t tell you anything about what a car wash is or how one works. The place is just a setting for something bigger that Nicholas is working on. I would put that bigger thing down as “how to see.” This week’s featured story, “A Monarch’s Way Through,” is a perfect illustration of how fiction is different from an essay. In fiction, you show but do not tell. In other words, you let your scenes, your characters, you story say what you want to say. You tell a good tale; you don’t give a lecture. Where I live, in Santa Cruz, California, there are several trees where monarchs overwinter. The monarch population in California that winters in Mexico, like the monarch in Alexa’s story, is down over 99 percent in the last 30 years. There were millions of these butterflies, and now there are only tens of thousands. Already in decline, in 1998 250,000 butterflies were counted in three Santa Cruz groves where they stop for the winter. Last year there were 4,200 in those same trees. There isn’t one single reason for the decline in the monarch butterfly population, but one big reason is definitely habitat loss. Alexa does a brilliant job of helping us imagine ourselves as a butterfly trying to migrate through an unfriendly terrain created by humans. Nicholas’s car wash photograph perfectly captures one of the big problems for these amazing migrating butterflies—a great deal of what we build completely excludes the natural world. Besides us, only scrappy creatures like pigeons can thrive in it. I really want you to focus on photography this weekend, but if you have extra time for creative energy, then write a story or poem that will help your readers to feel some of the challenges facing one of your favorite wild things. As always, send Editor Emma Wood what you create so she can consider it for Stone Soup. Until next week, Current Contest: Personal Narrative The way we approach fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as both readers and writers, is drastically different. For this reason, we’re happy to announce that Stone Soup is partnering with  Society of Young Inklings in our very first nonfiction contest and that, in 2020, we will begin to publish all nonfiction under its very own label in the magazine. What makes this contest extra special is our partnership with Society of Young Inklings (SYI): we are very excited to share that their team of professional writers has