About

She was not quite full grown, but not a kitten either Illustrator Erin Cadora, 10, for her story Phoebe. Published March/April 2008. A note from William Rubel The Flash Fiction contest deadline is Friday, June 15, at midnight. Contest submissions are coming in, thank you! In a previous Newsletter I suggested that one approach to writing flash fiction is to look through stories you have already written to find a passage that has the strength to stand on its own as is, or after only a small amount of editing. Newsletter reader Joanna Smith is a fiction author and blogger who recently blogged about how to approach writing flash fiction. I like what she wrote about how to approach flash fiction and encourage all of our readers to read Joanna’s post, regardless of age. For adult Newsletter readers, flash fiction is a good genre to use to break the ice and get back into creative writing. If you are are an adult and write something please feel free to send it to me by replying to this Newsletter. I’d like to see what you’ve done. Kids, ages 13 and under, please submit your flash fiction to our contest the usual way: click on the Submit button you will find lower down on the page and follow the instructions. Use JUNE18 code for FREE access to stonesoup.com It is official!  School is out! To celebrate, and to offer those of you who are not subscribers a good dose of Stone Soup to inspire your own creative Summer, we are offering you free access to Stone Soup at stonesoup.com for the rest of the month of June. All you have to do is go to the Stone Soup subscribe page and enter JUNE18 in the coupon field. That will give you unlimited access to  all Stone Soup PDFs and thousands of pages of writing by kids through the end of the month. Summer 2018 Journal The way I think of it, when the school year ends, that is the end of a year. The last day of school is a second December 31. The following day begins something new. On Wednesday, my daughter left sixth grade. On Thursday she effectively became a seventh grader. The end of school, the beginning of Summer, is the time, much more than January 1, to make resolutions. What I’d like to encourage all of us to do (and I am folding myself into this) is to start a Summer journal. Use the Summer journal to write about what you are doing, what you’re thinking, feeling, and as a sketchbook for stories, poems, and other creative work. This can include recipes. Flash fiction is also a very good format for journals. It can be applied to both fiction and nonfiction writing. Get started this weekend with your Summer 2018 Journal. Send me a photograph of your first two complete pages in a reply email to this Newsletter. I will include the first journal pages sent to me in next week’s Newsletter. To make this a project that all Newsletter readers can participate in, I will include images of journals that adults are writing, too. Now, to start! Look around your house for a blank journal or writing notebook that still has lots of blank pages in it so you can repurpose the book for your Summer 2018 Journal. If you don’t have anything on hand, then go out and buy a fresh journal to write in. Blank journals are cheaper at a stationery store or the stationery section of a big pharmacy. Bookstores and gifts shops also often have journals. We at Stone Soup sell a couple of journals at our online store.  But, best is to repurpose something you have on hand right now so you can start without needing to go out and shop for something. I’ll look forward to seeing pictures of your journals. Until next week, Keep up to date with the newest articles on our blog Our website is being revised this week so the developers have asked us not to add anything new to the site. There will be fresh posts very soon, along with a better organized blog section. From Stone Soup March/April 2008 Phoebe Written and Illustrated by Erin Cadora,10 It was a quaint little backyard, not much, but cozy, a haven for many strays. With pretty, plump azalea bushes to dash into, and a soft, ivy-covered ground to sleep on, a homeless kitty could spend a few comfortable nights there. Of course, it was never a permanent home of any stray, but there was one who was different. She was not quite full-grown, but not a kitten either. Her stomach was as white and fluffy as a cloud, but her tail, back, and the top of her head were a thunderstorm gray. She had petite paws and innocent features. Her face consisted of glittering, clever, but frightened eyes and an adorable little pink nose that almost sparkled in the sunlight. She had obviously had a previous home, because there was a silver bell attached to her neck by a red velvet strap. Unfortunately, her previous owner had most likely abused her; she was petrified of humans and always had that anxious look in her eyes. She had certainly taken quite a shine to that garden, and had seemed to settle there, but she took care not to venture near the crusted old brownstone that towered above her. Little did she know, the woman who lived in that house was interested in her, she was curious about the cat that lived in her yard. …/more 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.

“That was very nice of you, dear,” said his mom Illustrator Karina Jivkova,13 for They’re Pigs! by Adam Jacobs,11 Published January/February 2007. A note from William Rubel Even if you aren’t a kid, and don’t have a kid in your house, I am sure that you are aware that Summer vacation is almost upon us. My daughter reminded me today that there are only three days left of her middle school semester. Yikes! It is Summer, again! While Stone Soup is for kids, there is nothing kid-like about a great deal of what we publish. Look at this richly colored, well imagined, unusually framed illustration to our 2007 story, “They’re Pigs!”. I am in awe of how this drawing is organized, at the depth of observation and technical skill with which it is drawn. Note the shadow under the bed and the shadow cast by the vase on the night table. The design of that table, the folds of the sheets and curtains, the tactile feeling of the carpet are all masterful. I am also struck by the the child’s gesture, hand on head, and the fabulous directed gazes of the pigs themselves. It is a sumptuous drawing for an entertaining story. Scroll down to start reading the story, and click through to our website to finish it. Enjoy! Read the June issue now, and get inspired by animal art People say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover. I’m going to disagree with that today. You can judge the June issue of Stone Soup by its cover. The stories, poems, photographs, drawings and classic book review our young creators sent us (and Emma Wood selected) for this issue all live up to the promise of the wonderful cover. This portrait of ‘Red Fern’ is a truly great animal portrait. Hannah Parker, the photographer, is 13. Congratulations, Hannah, and thank you for sharing your work with Stone Soup! Scientists are doing a lot of work on animal cognition. The very clear conclusion, so far, is that animals are much cleverer than we humans had been giving them credit for. I have no idea what Red Fern is thinking. But I think one of the great strengths of this image is that it conveys the sense that the goat is not only alive, but aware. They are weird goat eyes, for sure, but even so, Hannah presents us with a goat that has personality, and real presence. In a newspaper I recently read the suggestion that governments should also count the animals we live with when they take a census of their citizens. My daughter and I live with about twenty-five creatures: a cat, rabbits, chickens, and aviary birds. The project for this weekend is to take your camera or your sketchbook, and take or make portraits of animals. I am using “animals” in its largest sense, so I’m including fish, birds, reptiles, and even insects, in addition to mammals. I want you to try to capture a sense of the animal’s personality. As this is a portrait, the head should take up a substantial portion of the frame or page. If you are using a camera, then take lots of pictures so you have many to choose from. Part of the art of photography is recognizing which of the many pictures you took is the “keeper.” As always, if you think you created something Stone Soup might publish, then send it to Editor Emma for her consideration by uploading the image at the Stone Soup submissions page. Meanwhile, I encourage all of you to check out the June issue at our website. If you like what you see, and aren’t already a subscriber, then please subscribe for the young writer or artist in your life. Subscribers can read the full issue online or download it as a PDF to read on their tablet. We also have print copies ready to go at our mailing house, so if you prefer you can order it in print. Until next week Read more at stonesoup.com Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at stonesoup.com! Book Review: Moo by Sharon Creech, reviewed by Carlyle Bryant, 11  Book Review: Almost Autumn, by Marianne Kaurin, reviewed by Claire Buchanan, 12 Nature: Help Protect Trees by Antara Book Review: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi, reviewed by Nina Vigil, 11 Book Review: Holes by Louis Sachar, reviewed by Abhi Sukhdial, 10 Support Stone Soup through Amazon Smile Did you know that you can support the Children’s Art Foundation, the non-profit behind Stone Soup, through the Amazon Smile program? Each purchase made by a supporter contributes a tiny amount so that magically, just like the original stone soup in the fairy tale, the more who chip in, the richer the pot will become. All you have to do to effortlessly raise money for Stone Soup is go to the Amazon Smile portal. You will be asked to choose the charity you’d like to support. Once you have chosen, 0.5% of the value of all your purchases will go to the charitable organization in question. You can change your designation at any time. Find us in the US Amazon program by searching for “Children’s Art Foundation – Stone Soup.” It takes a little retraining to switch to smile.amazon.com as one’s default Amazon URL, but once you do then every time you buy something from Amazon you help us out. Your support matters. Thank you! From Stone Soup January/February 2007 They’re Pigs! By Adam Jacobs, 11 Illustrated by Karina Jivkova,13 It was a beautiful morning in California. The ocean sparkled… the trees were a lush green… what a perfect time for the loud, unwelcome buzz of the alarm clock. Ryan got out of bed and shut the thing off. A little too suddenly, he decided, as he began to grow dizzy and weary. He staggered across the room to the door. He needed breakfast. Now. What day is it, anyway? he wondered. The calendar said it was Thursday. Thursday! Thursday was wake-up-the-family-in-a-weird-and-obnoxious-way day! He had been waiting for this

Slowly, the Faeries appeared and sat on the daisies in the circle like chairs Illustrator Susannah Benjamin, 13 for The Faerie Circle by Alana Yang, 12 Published March/April 2007 A note from William Rubel The first Stone Soup Science Issue is in the works. The deadline for submissions for this issue, which will include fiction, art and nonfiction writing, is July 1, so this a good beginning-of-Summer project. The nonfiction element is a more unusual one for Stone Soup, and Editor Emma has asked me to explain in this Newsletter what the two kinds of science nonfiction writing we are looking for are, so you can start to think about your submissions. A few weeks ago, I was given a tour of a United States Department of Agriculture laboratory by a scientist who worked there. He was so excited about his work! He was so excited about what he was studying! He was so engaged in his stories about the science he was doing, and his work was so creative, that I became jealous! I thought, wow!, what a great thing it is to be a scientist! We are looking for writing from young scientists that communicates that kind of enthusiasm to us, your readers. One kind of science writing we are looking for is writing that describes science projects or experiments. A science project might include an insect or rock collection, or the careful observation of the behaviors of a pair of pet parakeets. A science experiment is something you have done as a working experimental scientist in which you test a hypothesis through experimentation. For those of you who have participated in a school science fair you may already have science projects that you could write up for Stone Soup. Whether you are an observational scientist or an experimental scientist, in the end you have to tell people what you’ve done. What have you observed? What do the observations mean? Or, what was your experiment? And what did it explain? All science ends in story. What Stone Soup is looking for are stories written when you are working with your “science” hat on, that will engage other Stone Soup readers. The second kind of nonfiction science writing we are looking for is writing on scientific issues, like global warming, or plate tectonics, or snow leopards. Can you write about these subjects in a way that makes the subject accessible and interesting and engaging for non-scientists? There are lots of examples of writers who can. Reporters for the science sections of newspapers, like the New York Times, are science writers who can engage non-experts. A marine biologist and conservationist called Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring in 1962 that had a lasting impact on the environmental movement all over the world. She told her science story in a way that captured imaginations. That is what we are looking for for Stone Soup. The Stone Soup Science Issue also includes fiction, poetry, photography, and art inspired by science. You might research an animal and become very knowledgeable about how that animal lives, about its behaviors, and about the way it moves. And with that knowledge you might make a model or a painting, or write a story with that animal as a character. You might write a piece of prose or a poem that is inspired by close observation of nature. This could include a natural place that you love. One of the most extraordinary works of art I have ever seen, a painting I think about a lot, is a small watercolor by Albrecht Dürer called The Great Piece of Turf, of a patch of grass with wild flowers. It is painted with the eye of a scientist, and with the feelings and heart of an artist. We are looking forward to seeing what happens when you try to combine those things, too! Getting ready for our June issue Don’t do it! Do not read your Stone Soup issues on your tablet in the bath! This is asking for trouble. My excuse is that I had started the bath water running just as I started reading the printer’s proof of the June 2018 issue, and I just didn’t want to stop reading. I’d like to remind all of you who want to read offline, wherever you like, that the PDFs of each month’s issue are available to subscribers for download on the first of the month. A few of you have asked about the Kindle format. We are working on it, and ought to be able to offer Kindle editions soon. We are also back in print. All of the 2018 issues up to May are in our online store now for sale as single issues; the June issue has been printed, is on its way to our mailing house as I write, and will be ready to be sent out on June 1st. And finally, for our adult readers: please take a look at the section below on our privacy policy, which we have updated to ensure we are in compliance with new European legislation, and a reminder of your control over what email we send you.Enjoy the rest of May, and don’t forget to make the most of the fabulous May issue on our homepage now, while you wait for June to come at the end of next week. Until then, Emails, Privacy and GDPR As you may know, on May 25th 2018 the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy laws came into effect.< You currently receive this email newsletter, which contains the latest news about Stone Soup online, our print offerings including books, and offers, reminders about submissions and contests. You also receive emails notifying you when the new monthly issue of the magazine is published online. If you wish to opt-out and stop receiving our emails, you may do so at any time by unsubscribing from this list. The link allowing you to do so is at the bottom of every email from us, including this one. As a non-profit devoted to children’s creativity our work focuses on championing a broad range of creative outlets for our young readers, contributors and artists through our publishing programme, events, newsletters and publications. Our ability to ensure a vibrant future depends on us being