Newsletter

“Umbrellas”. Photograph by Marlena Rohde, 12, the cover of Stone Soup, February 2019. A note from William Rubel I’d like to start this week’s newsletter by talking about the remarkable February issue. Our editor, Emma Wood, put together an issue that departs from our normal structure. You will find a novella, a poetry cycle, a cycle of four poems and a drawing about the seasons, and a varied selection of art throughout the chapters of the novella. The novella, by 11-year-old Harper Miller, is the core of the issue by virtue of its length—but all of the work was selected to form a harmonious whole. I have mentioned SoundCloud in recent newsletters. Listen to Harper reading her novella at the Stone Soup SoundCloud channel. If you like what you hear, then please follow us. It is an honor to publish Harper’s novella. Longer works of fiction are more difficult to shape and finish than shorter stories. As a writer myself, I can speak about this from experience. It’s increasingly easy to lose one’s way the longer a piece becomes. “Dancing in the Rain” rewards the attentive reader. The story is calm, but deep. I hope you all like it as much as I do. If any of you are working on a longer-form piece of fiction, please persevere to the end and then submit it to Stone Soup so Emma can consider your work. We are flexible about length, so don’t worry about how many pages it is. William’s weekend project Look at “Umbrellas,” the cover illustration for the February issue. Wow! A study of color. A study of spacial relationships—the very distant sky, the clouds, and the near but still-out-of-reach umbrellas all appear to be attached to separate planes. And which way are they curving? Looking at the photograph I feel stillness. Cold. Ethereal beauty. Balance. What are your responses to the photograph? Pick up your phone or camera and take your own photograph that captures at least one of your own responses, or write your thoughts about Marlena’s photograph in the comments section on our website. As I suggest so often, do this whether you are a Stone Soup-age reader or whether you are older. And, if you are a Stone Soup age writer or artists, consider sending us your work using the Submit button. 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! The review of Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy, by Nina Vigil, raises interesting questions about how as a reviewer one should best approach reviewing a book series. Two interesting pieces by Stone Soup bloggers. The first is a poetic work by a young writer called “The Blue Chair.” This piece is a reminder that very young children can create work that makes you think. “Sledding,” by Maya V., reminds me of the years during my childhood when we lived in Washington, DC. It didn’t snow often, but when it did snow enough for sledding—as Maya describes—we’d immediately go to a sledding spot. Being able sled was so rare, and I was always so excited! From Stone Soup February 2019 Dancing in the Rain: A Novella By Harper Miller, 11   This book is dedicated to my little brother, Theo, for encouraging me to try.   Dear Reader, Hi! My name is Harper Miller, and I want to be an author when I grow up. I live with my very old dog, Oscar, my Mom and Dad, and my little brother, Theo (with me in the picture above), who is three years younger than me. I started my book on May 11, 2017, when I was 10 and finished on November 27, 2017, and now I am 11. I worked a lot on this book, and I want to say thank you to my Mom and Dad, who helped make this possible. Also, thank you to my editor (and close friend), Mackenzie. You might wonder why I wrote about a girl going through a drought. Here is my answer. I wrote this book to show that a child can make a difference in the world, even when things might be looking pretty bad. Writing this book was one of the many highlights of my life so far. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Sincerely, Harper You can read Harper’s nine-chapter novella in the current issue of Stone Soup. If you like what you read, then please support this work by subscribing or donating to Stone Soup magazine.  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 Stone Soup is published by the Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. Your donations make our work  possible. Please click the Donate button on our website to help us publish more great work by kids.

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