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I board. I find a seat by the window, I sit . Illustrator Savva Gretzky, 13 for “Subway Adventure” by Elam Fifer-Whiting, 13. Published July/August 2014. A note from William Rubel The first two lines of the Stone Soup story, “Subway Adventure,” are, “It is super hot, humid. Sweat is running down my back like a brook.” I am writing this week’s Newsletter from New York and it could not be more different than the hot humid day in which Elam Fifer set his story. It is very cold. I am from California. I have never been any place as cold as New York is right now. I am in New York with my Stone Soup colleague, Jane Levi. A highlight of this trip, for sure, something we will never forget, was our wonderful dinner on Tuesday evening with prolific Stone Soup contributor Sabrina Guo and her parents, Spencer and Eva. We met in a Chinese restaurant. A great meal is always a combination of the food and the company. This was a memorable meal. We talked about many things—writing, music, school, and, of course, Stone Soup. Specifically, our refugee project. As you know, Sabrina has taken on the project of bringing the creative work of refugee kids, especially the Another Kind of Girl Collective, to our website and to the pages of Stone Soup. We exchanged ideas on how to move forward with this initiative. I’ll give you a fuller report on what we discussed in a couple weeks. I asked Sabrina whether she kept a journal and she said that she did. She doesn’t write in it every day. But she does write every week, usually a couple of times in the week. I can’t emphasize how important journal writing can be to support your larger writing projects. Writing takes practice. It takes practice to get control of the words and also it takes practice to learn to say what you mean and mean what you say. There is something about writing in journals that encourages direct, honest writing. Journal writing is private writing. You are the only one who reads it, so the pressure one feels producing writing that will be read by one’s teachers, parents, friends, or, if you write for Stone Soup, thousands of strangers, is not there. I agree with Sabrina that it is probably best to write your journal with pen or pencil rather than type it. You don’t need a fancy expensive writing book for your journal—any notebook with lined paper (or plain paper if you prefer) works equally well. If you don’t already keep a journal, then when should you start? I’d say, this weekend! On Thursday, Jane and I went to an exhibit about the life, art and writing of J. R. R. Tolkein, the author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The exhibit is at the Morgan Library, having come from the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. It will go to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris in the Fall. When Tolkein was 12 he kept a small watercolor journal—a painting journal. This is an example of a painting Tolkein made when he was the age of Stone Soup artists. Many artists keep journals in the form of drawings and small paintings. If you gravitate more towards the graphic arts then start a graphic journal. If your art might be photography then I advise you to choose the images that you want to be part of your journal and that you print them out, glue them to paper, and make a proper journal/book with them. Trips to New York are often packed—this is not all the Stone Soup work we did. We are expanding our Board of Directors. I will save talking about our new Board, and who else we met in New York, for the Newsletter next week. Suffice it to say: we are so excited about our new Board and what they will bring to Stone Soup. I cannot wait to share this with you. And. We also spoke with a curator at a major New York museum about collaborating on a big project: there will be more on this in a few weeks. I just want you to know that some really great and exciting things are in the works! In closing, as always, if you are 13 or younger and have produced something really great this last week that you think would be appropriate for Stone Soup, then please go to our submission page and upload it. And, also as always, your subscriptions help us keep the Stone Soup project going, so please subscribe for your Stone Soup-aged children, for children of friends, for nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. Help us put this great magazine in the hands of kids who will appreciate it. Until next week, Highlights from the past week online All the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers is at stonesoup.com! Don’t miss this gorgeous drawing and poem by David Jacobs, The Blue Chair. From Stone Soup July/August 2014 Subway Adventure By Elam Fifer-Whiting, 13 Illustrated by Savva Gretzky, 13 It is super hot, humid. Sweat is running down my back like a brook. I am waiting. The A train is mine. I am on the east side of the Forty-Second Street platform for the southbound A train. People are running, late people walk slowly, lost people are walking purposefully. A woman pushes a rattling, clanking cart. She is dirty, a wrinkled old woman. She bumps to a stop next to me. She jingles a cup at me. She wants money. I have none. She and her cart continue on. I feel sadness. She is poor. How did she become poor? How did she get the cart on the platform? Where does she live? Why do I not have change for her? Where is she going? I don’t ask. A train stops, it is not mine. There is a band playing, a one-man, four-piece band. His face is small and thin, his clothes are clean. He is joyful, he is playing joyful

Bighorn River was an exhilarating place to spend our afternoon Illustrator Brian Merte, 13, for “Brotherhood” by Kevin Wang, 11. Published September/October 2007. A note from William Rubel The rainbow gracing the waterfall splashing into a lake rich with insects and fish in the illustration by Brian Merte is an idealized glimpse of the natural world. To help us believe in this dream vision Brian is careful to draw accurately many of the picture’s components–such as the acorns, dragonflies, and cattails. The drawing was commissioned by our then editor, Gerry Mandel, to go with the story, “Brotherhood,” published 12 years ago, in 2007. Once you have enjoyed the artwork I’d like you to pay attention to the magnificent language you will encounter in the story it illustrates, by Kevin Wang. In particular, I’d like you to notice how he brings a poetic expression to his prose. Here is an example: Crisp, dry auburn leaves were settling to the ground like fairies relishing their last ballet before reaching the forest floor. It is a beautiful simile–”like fairies relishing their last ballet before reaching the forest floor.” It brings the graceful, dancerly movement of falling laves to the mind’s eye. Strictly speaking, Kevin’s story is not about nature. While it takes place in a beautiful place, it is a story about friendship set in a place of natural beauty. Two boys talk by the side of the river. Nature plays its part, but it isn’t in the lead role. Today, I’d like to call your attention to the nonfiction nature writing that you will find in our blogs. Recently, we have published three pieces by Sierra Glassman, two nature videos and one essay on Martha, the last passenger pigeon. Sierra’s videos are well produced and super informative. One of them is about a recent trip to an area of Brazil that is rich in wildlife. The other is about hummingbirds. I hope at least some of you will be inspired by the videos to make a video of your own. Sierra’s essay on passenger pigeons is topical. We are currently at the beginning of what scientists are calling a “great extinction.” Large numbers of insects and animals are going extinct because of human activity. The story of Martha, the last passenger pigeon, has many lessons for us, today. You can find Sierra’s three blog posts here.  Lukas Cooke is one of our most consistent bloggers. Thank you Lukas! Lukas often writes about nature. All of his writing is worth reading. His most recent post, Alien Serenity is about visiting Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. Lukas’ post has inspired me to schedule a visit to this park with my daughter later in the year. William’s Weekend project For this weekend’s project I want you to do or make something about nature. Use one of the Stone Soup blog posts as a project example: describe a place you have visited, explain something about the natural world, talk about climate change, habitat loss, or something else that threatens nature, make a scientific drawing, or, like Sierra, a nature video. If a nonfiction work on nature doesn’t appeal to you then, like Kevin, the author of “Brotherhood,” use a well described natural place as the setting for a story. As always send us anything you are happy with. We always look forward to seeing your work. Until next week Stone Soup news! Audio recordings: If you didn’t check out our SoundCloud files last week, please go to website and listen to a few of the stories. If you like what you hear–Stone Soup authors reading their own stories and poetry–then please follow us. New material is posted regularly. This is mostly directed at the adults who read the Newsletter. We have started discussions with our web designer and programmer to redesign the website, to improve the look of it and to improve navigation. We trust them to help us get to the next level for something in the region of $5,000. We feel that the website is holding us back, and we are looking forward to bringing the same stellar look of our printed material to our web pages. If you have been thinking about donating to Stone Soup, and if making our website a better showcase for children’s creativity is a project that strikes a chord with you, then this is the time to help out. Thank you. To our adult readers and supporters… The philosopher Socrates tells us that “The secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Stone Soup exists to inspire, support, develop, and share the creative work of young people: the magazine, website, and books we produce are the Children’s Art Foundation’s contribution to “building the new.” Will you support us? One-off gifts and regular donations, on any scale, help us realize our aims. Find out more about what your gift will achieve by clicking the ‘Donate’ button. Highlights from the past week online As I mentioned in last week’s Newsletter, the way to support our book reviewers, bloggers and the Stone Soup project in general is to subscribe. Several of you did last week–thank you! This week, we have some great new work from our bloggers. Maya V writes about the joys of Sledding, while our nature blogger Lukas Cooke brings you Alien Serenity. From Stone Soup September/October 2007, and The Stone Soup Book of Friendship Stories (2018) Brotherhood By Kevin Wang, 11 Illustrated by Brian Merte, 13 It was a warm, brisk Saturday afternoon, and Jack and I couldn’t wait to get to the river. Crisp, dry auburn leaves were settling to the ground like fairies relishing their last ballet before reaching the forest floor. We knew they would soon be buried under mounds of snow, obscuring the path to the forest. The wind snapped at our faces as we sprinted over rolling hills that made their way into the lush forest. We ran along the path, kicking aside piles of leaves which had formed a quilt of a million pieces for us. Jack suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, and I stumbled, falling onto the path. “What is it, buddy?” I asked him, as I picked

He hugged her, begging her not to cry, using all his courage to reassure her Illustrator Natalie Chin, 10 for “Finding an American Voice” by Jeanne Mack, 12. Published January/February 2003. A note from William Rubel The Stone Soup digital edition is not the same as the Stone Soup print edition. Like many other magazines, the New Yorker, for example, publishing digitally enables us to do more. Those of you who have a digital subscription know this already. Something you may not have discovered yet for yourselves is that some of our more recently published writing include recordings of the work read by the author. These recordings are fabulous. There is nothing like hearing the work read in the author’s own voice. All of the Stone Soup author recordings are posted to SoundCloud, where you can browse through them and listen to them free. As of this writing we have 10 followers, and that includes me! So, please, when you go and listen to our stories, start following our feed and tell all your friends about it, too. You can also listen to the recordings and read the story at the same time at our website, and help us pay for the work that goes into making this recording program possible by subscribing to the digital edition of Stone Soup. Drawing from our December 2018 food issue, I’m including here a link to Catherine Gruen’s recipe for Basil Asiago Garlic Olive Oil Tortillas. Read her wonderful headnote to the recipe. Listen to her read it. Then, read the recipe and plan to make it for your family. The link I have given you for SoundCloud is the one that shows you the recordings organized by issue. William’s weekend project I want you to record a story or a poem, or a group of poems, and then play the recording back to your friends and/or family. Many mobile phones have excellent microphones and will be sufficient for this project. There a couple tips I can give you to get good sound. Firstly, hold the microphone end of the phone near to your mouth but off to the side. There are vocalizations, like the puff that comes with the letter “p” or the hiss that comes with the letter “s” that mess up recordings if you are talking directly into the microphone. So, to repeat, you don’t want the microphone directly in front of your lips, but you do want the microphone a little off to the side. Record a few lines and listen to what you have recorded before doing a complete recording. Listen to the playback with earphones or earbuds. Close your eyes and really listen. What you are aiming for is a nice strong, clear, sound–like the stories you’ve listened to being read on SoundCloud. Keep experimenting until you are happy with what you hear. Recording a story or poem requires a voice that is clear, and usually slower than a normal speaking voice. It is very common to hate the sound of your own recorded voice. “Is this really what I sound like? Yuck!” Yes, that recording is what you sound like to other people! You will get used to it! You might do a couple or even a few practice readings, or you might just start reading. That is up to you. What if you make a mistake? It doesn’t matter. For today, which is making a recording without the use of sound editing software, just stay relaxed, pause, and go on. For this project, it doesn’t matter what you read. Record something you have written, something a friend has written, or a chapter in a book you love. As always, if you like what you’ve done, then submit the recording to Stone Soup and we will see whether there is something we might be able to do with it. You will use the Multimedia category when you submit. What you are doing is called “spoken word.” We look forward to hearing from you! Until next week Highlights from the past week online This week, we have a new book review from 9-year-old Vivaan, of the “hilarious” book by Tom McLaughlin, The Accidental Prime Minister. If you are wondering about politics and politicians today, or thinking about a career in politics, don’t miss this book, or Vivaan’s review! From Stone Soup January/February 2003 Finding an American Voice By Jeanne Mack, 12 Illustrated by Natalie Chin, 10 Dong-suk followed his uncle, carefully keeping his pace slow enough for his haal-mu-hee, his grandma. His mother was close behind. The group moved along with hurried steps, adding to the bustle of the sidewalks of Seoul. His hand was gripped tightly around his grandmother’s and he shouldered a backpack. Although his feet were quick to stay in line behind his uncle, his thoughts were slow. He was going to America to be with his father, who had left a year before. He could not wait to see his father, but he was afraid his father would not be proud of him. As he thought, his free hand closed around the black stone in his pocket. The stone had been given to him the night before. There had been a specially cooked meal and his grandmother had told her stories and sang songs. She had driven away all his doubts about America. After dinner, while he was in bed, Grandmother had come in and given him a tiny pebble, her lucky dol, or stone. Dong-suk remembered the way she had smiled, showing her famous dimple on her cheek. Then she had spread out her small, delicate hands, wrapping him in a hug. *          *          * Abbie banged the front door open and stepped inside without taking off her rollerblades. “Abbie May Kessler, what have I told you about roller-blades in the house?” said her mother as she passed by. Abbie smiled, ducking her head so her mom wouldn’t see. She threw off the rollerblades and then hopped on up to her bedroom as her mom yelled, “And you’d better get started on those book reports of yours. If you haven’t gotten them finished by