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“A white Christmas,” she said happily. “It’s been a longtime since we’ve had one of those” Illustration by William Gwaltney, 12 for his story “A Calf for Christmas” published in Stone Soup, November/December 2007. A note from Emma Wood I grew up celebrating Christmas. Even though I’m now all grown up, it remains a very special time of year for me. Returning to Christmas every year reminds me of all the Christmases I’ve celebrated in my life, and it makes me feel nostalgic. This means I am filled with longing for the past. Being nostalgic makes me eager to recreate the traditions I grew up with: like my mother, I listen to the Vienna Boys’ Choir as we trim the tree, make Spritz cookies, eat a lot of raw dough, and if I am in New York City—where I grew up and my parents still live—I enjoy going to hear Christmas carols at church on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, I usually get up early and go running in Central Park. Then my family and I make pancakes and open presents while listening to Handel’s Messiah. Later in the day, we go to our family friends’ house, the Darlings, for dinner, and enjoy a special Christmas cake called a Bûche de Noël. But since I got married, I have had to learn to embrace new traditions—and to get used to celebrating Christmas in a new way. My husband has a large family in Utah. He and his parents and his sister open presents in the morning at their grandparents’ house. A big part of their Christmas is the stockings, which they fill (usually to the point of spilling over!) with little gifts like yummy snacks, chapsticks, and socks. Later that day, all of his aunts and uncles and the many cousins descend on the house for Christmas lunch. Everyone hangs out in the living room, talking, reading, maybe even watching a movie, or taking a nap. Sometimes, the younger kids go outside and play in the snow. It is a fun, relaxing day. Once my husband and I have a family of our own, we will have to decide which traditions from our childhoods we will want to keep and which new traditions we would like to introduce into our family. Whatever holiday you celebrate, I invite you to think about what traditions your family has this time of year, and what makes this time of year feel special for you. Or maybe, for whatever reason, you hate this time of year. Regardless of how you feel, I encourage you to try to explore those feelings and the reasons behind them through writing or art. Can you write a piece or take a photograph that captures your or your family’s holiday “mood”? When you’re done, please consider submitting your work via Submittable. I hope you are savoring the time you are spending together as a family or with friends. You are making memories that you will treasure as an adult. Happy holidays!   Year-end donations Thank you so much to all of you who have answered our call for donations over the last few weeks–and through the year. We are truly grateful and thrilled to feel the strength of support for our work. Click here if you didn’t receive the donor drive letter, or would like to read its message again. This week on the blog Stone Soup has published beautiful watercolors and photographs of birds by Sierra Glassman over the past couple of years. (Her “Mountain Quail” is even the cover of our new edition of The Stone Soup Book of Animal Stories!). Now she has written a wonderful blog post about Passenger Martha, the last passenger pigeon. More free subscriptions given away in our 45th birthday promotion Congratulations to our latest winners! Stone Soup is 45 years old this year. We are celebrating that milestone by offering free subscriptions and prizes as we strive to win 1,000 new subscribers before the end of the year. Every 45th subscriber receives a free subscription—more than a dozen have already been awarded. The 450th subscriber has been sent their parcel of books, and their free subscription has been awarded. The 900th will get the same prize when we reach that target. It could be you, or someone you refer in the next week or so! The 1,000th subscriber will receive a free subscription, plus all 10 books, plus a free site license for the institution (school or public library) of their choice. It’s easy to subscribe: visit this page. This particular promotion will continue until we meet our target or get to the end of the year, whichever comes first. Please share this with everyone you think would benefit from joining the readership of Stone Soup. And don’t forget, you (and anyone you share the code with) can get a 10% discount on your annual subscription using the code CHEER2018 on our subscription form. Holiday shopping For holiday gifts: all print subscriptions and other book and product orders made directly with us ship within two days of being received. All orders received for the remainder of the year will be sent by Priority Mail. And don’t forget, you can buy Stone Soup Annuals and Books of… at Amazon, too. For last-minute shoppers: Digital subscriptions (and the digital portion of combined print/digital subscriptions) are available immediately! Print and digital subscriptions via our website, Stonesoup.com. Use code CHEER2018 on annual subscriptions and receive a 10% discount (until December 31 only) Annuals, anthologies, notebooks, and sketchbooks, via our online store, Stonesoupstore.com Published in Stone Soup, November/December 2007, and in the Stone Soup Book of Festival & Holiday Stories A Calf for Christmas Written and illustrated by William Gwaltney, 12 It was Christmas Eve, and everything was ready. Presents had been purchased with great care months before. Yesterday they had been wrapped in dozens of pretty papers and decorated with beautiful bows. Now they sat like sparkling jewels in a pirate’s treasure chest, under the fragrant boughs of a giant spruce. The farmhouse was filled with tinsel

“Frozen Beauty” by Hanna Gustafson, 12. Photograph published in Stone Soup, January 2018. A note from William Rubel Thanks to all of you who have so far answered our call for donations. We are overwhelmed by your generosity and support for our work in 2018. Click here if you didn’t receive the donor drive letter, or would like to read its message again. Do you love podcasts? Podcasters! We recently agreed to work with a South African podcaster who specializes in podcasts by kids. Details will follow in a few weeks. This podcaster told us that we should start our own podcast program. I’d like to know who amongst you—kid or adult—has worked on a podcast. If you have, or if you have skills you think might be helpful to us—please send me a letter by replying to this email. If you have worked on a published podcast, then please include the URL. A project for this week(end) For the project this week, I’d like you to look at the photograph “Frozen Beauty,” by Hanna Gustafson, which we are republishing here from last January’s issue, and to read the poem by Sheila Northrup it is paired with at the bottom of the newsletter. I want you to go outside with a phone or camera and take a photograph of winter beauty where you live. Where I live, this is a tough assignment; our winter beauty looks more like what for most of you would look like spring. If you live in Arizona or Florida or Texas or in my California, your winter beauty photograph will look very different from that of a reader in Maine or Wisconsin or Alaska. The poem says, “Now it is official./ Winter is finally here.” I want you to capture in a photograph what, to you, makes winter “official” where you live. As always, if you really like what you have done and think you have nailed the assignment, please upload it to our submissions website so Emma can see it. By the way, my daughter and I are flying to Egypt today! My colleagues will take over the newsletter while I’m away. Best wishes for the holidays! Until I return, More winners in our 45th birthday promotion: every 45th subscriber gets a free subscription! Congratulations to our latest winners–including our 450th subscriber since the promotion began, who gets extra prizes! Stone Soup was 45 years old this year. We are celebrating that birthday and celebrating being back in print with an offer to our loyal readers. Can you help us meet our target of 1,000 new print subscribers by the end of the year? We are offering free subscriptions and extra prizes at various points along the way, all tied into our age, and we are more than half way there!. Every 45th subscriber receives a free subscription (3 more this week, in New York, Wisconsin, and California) The 450th and 900th subscribers receive a free subscription, plus copies of all ten of the Stone Soup books in our collection (8 anthologies and 2 Annuals). A parcel will be on its way to Portland, Oregon, next week. And, the 1,000th will receive all of that, plus a free site license for the institution (school or public library) of their choice. It’s easy to subscribe: visit this page. This particular promotion will continue until we meet our target or get to the end of the year, whichever comes first. Please share this with everyone you think would benefit from joining the readership of Stone Soup. And don’t forget, you (and anyone you share the code with) can get a 10% discount on your annual subscription using the code CHEER2018 on our subscription form.   This week on the blog This week, read Lucy Ward’s review of Noggin, by John Corey Whaley, and think, if you can, about what it might be like to wake up to find your head stuck on a different body!   Holiday shopping For holiday gifts: all print subscriptions and other book and product orders ship within two days of being received. All orders received for the remainder of the year will be sent by Priority Mail. To be sure of delivery in time for Christmas, please order by December 17, or select one of the FedEx delivery options. For last-minute shoppers: Digital subscriptions (and the digital portion of combined print/digital subscriptions) are available immediately! Print and digital subscriptions via our website, Stonesoup.com. Use code CHEER2018 on annual subscriptions and receive a 10% discount (until December 31 only) Annuals, anthologies, notebooks, and sketchbooks, via our online store, Stonesoupstore.com Published in Stone Soup, January 2018   Winter   By Sheila Northrup, 10 Illustrated with ‘Frozen Beauty’ by Hanna Gustafson, 12   Soft, white, flakes drift down, following the wind. They bring a sense of happiness to the air. The golden rays of warmth strike onto the fluffy blanket below. The harsh cold still manages to crawl inside houses. Heat vents roar and the windows give out a moan. Thick clouds soon hide the sun. Smoke floats out of the chimneys into the bitter air, while leaves and grass are out of sight. The snow is swallowing up trees. Hot chocolate is being slurped down at every house. Now it is official. Winter is finally here. Click here to read more poems and stories about winter published in Stone Soup. Our customer service contact details for anyone seeking help with a subscription: Email: stonesoup@icnfull.com (response usually within 24–48 hours) Phone: 215-458-8555 (between 7:30 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday; and 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday and Sunday) 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. To our adult readers and supporters…  as Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” The smallest gift from just a few

Stone Soup Annual 2018: Detail from “My Chinese Dream” by Li Lingfei, Shanghai, China (published in Stone Soup, March 2018), and “Preface” by Emma Wood. A note from William Rubel The Stone Soup Annual 2018 is 411 pages and weighs 1.75 pounds! It’s in full color and includes every piece of writing, every illustration, from all 11 issues published this year, plus an issue’s worth of the best blog material and book reviews published online in 2018. The story that we have posted in this newsletter today, “Zachary, Sophie,” was first published in the March issue. When you purchase the Annual,you will get this story and hundreds of pages more of fantastic, evocative literature, all by kids. A basic review of the story? Beyond brilliant. But rather than my providing a summary and my own analysis, please read the story below. If you like it, if you also think it’s brilliant, then please order the Annual for Christmas. We still have copies in stock. I’d like to once again talk about recent Stone Soup blog posts. That is because we at Stone Soup are so happy with what is being written. We want you all to read the fabulous writing we are publishing in the blog genre, and we want you to write blogs for us too. The blogs are open to both Stone Soup-aged writers and to adults. So far, more kids have answered our blogging call than grown-ups. So, if you are a teacher, homeschooler, or just someone who has something to say that would be appropriate for Stone Soup readers, please send us a sample post. Go to the submit page and scroll down to the blog category to upload your sample. “Forts of Play,” by Keshav Ravi, takes me right back to my childhood. Like him, I was also a fort child. Sheets, blankets, furniture, and clothespins were the tools of my fort-building trade. Keshav takes me right back (almost 60 years) to my childhood house in Washington, DC. I can see those forts and remember crawling around on the floor in my buildings. Keshav’s blog post is a jewel. It is beautifully written and elegantly conveys the hours of pleasure his forts afford him. My personal thanks to Keshav for reminding me of my childhood. This is Stone Soup at its best: powerful writing by kids. For a simple project today, whether you are a child or adult reader of this newsletter, sit down and write a few paragraphs about something in your childhood, the one you’re experiencing now if you’re child, or the one you recollect if you are not. Write about something that resonates with you in the way that Keshav’s fort resonates with him. Another blog post from the last couple of weeks that also speaks to my own life is the post, “Sad Books,” by Maya V. I am also someone who finds it difficult—even impossible—to read books that are overwhelmingly sad. In Maya’s words: “But, when the main character is continuously morose, the book keeps referring to whatever tragic thing has happened, and the book only talks about this dismal thing, after giving it many chances, I decide it’s not worth it to anguish myself over a book.” Wow! This is exactly how I feel! This is the first time I have seen this feeling expressed in writing, and I have never met anyone who is as disturbed by sad books as I am. There are absolutely books that I cannot read. There are movies I cannot see. There are plays, like Shakespeare’s Othello, that leave me utterly destroyed at the end. Thank you, Maya, for expressing your thoughts about sad books so clearly and articulately. Your words speak directly to at least this reader’s experience with emotionally distressing literature. All of you! Please read our blogs—and leave comments—and become a blogger. The genre is flexible. You can write what you like. Until next week, More winners in our 45th birthday promotion: every 45th subscriber gets a refund! Stone Soup was 45 years old this year. We are celebrating that birthday and celebrating being back in print with an offer to our loyal readers. Can you help us meet our target of 1,000 new print subscribers by the end of the year? We are offering free subscriptions and extra prizes at various points along the way, all tied into our age. Every 45th subscriber will receive a free subscription (1 announced last week, and 3 more this week!) The 450th and 900th subscribers will receive a free subscription, plus copies of all ten of the Stone Soup books in our collection (8 anthologies and 2 Annuals). And, the 1,000th will receive all of that, plus a free site license for the institution (school or public library) of their choice. It’s easy to subscribe: visit this page. This particular promotion will continue until we meet our target or get to the end of the year, whichever comes first. Please share this with everyone you think would benefit from joining the readership of Stone Soup. And don’t forget, you can get a 10 percent discount on your annual subscription using the code CHEER2018 on our subscription form. This week on the blog This week, we have a new book review by Faith, of Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff. Let us know in the comments whether you read this book too, and how you felt about it. Shipping News! For holiday gifts: all print subscriptions and other book and product orders ship within two days of being received. From today, we are no longer shipping US orders using media mail: all orders received for the remainder of the year will be sent by Priority Mail. To be sure of delivery in time for Christmas, please order by December 17, or select one of the FedEx delivery options. Print and digital subscriptions via our website, Stonesoup.com Annuals, anthologies, notebooks, and sketchbooks, via our online store, Stonesoupstore.com Published in Stone Soup, March 2018 Zachary, Sophie By Kate Choi, 11 Illustrated with ‘The Gift of Music’ by Delaney Slote, 10 The first day of seventh grade our