Newsletter

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

Colored pencil ‘Tick Tock’ by Marco Lu, 12, published in Stone Soup, January 2019. To our adult readers: A call for web designers! Before getting into the meat of this week’s newsletter, I’d like to put out a call to those of you who are web designers or work for a web-design firm. Our first priority this year is improving our website’s functionality and its design. Our print publications were redesigned in 2018. It is the website’s turn in 2019. A more beautiful and more functional website is key to our many projects—the magazine, the blogs, the book reviews, a new project space for child-refugee art and writing, a space for child composers, and more. How do we improve our navigation and make what we have clearer and more engaging? How do we add new kinds of content and retain clarity and engagement? If you can help us with this, please reply to the newsletter. This is a WordPress site. Thank you. A note from William Rubel The January Issue! It’s great! I know. I am always saying that. But it is always true. You, our Stone Soup writers and artists, are consistently sending us fabulous material. Before saying something more about the issue, I’d like to let you read editor Emma Wood’s introduction. In January, the days are already getting longer but it doesn’t feel that way! This issue has some short short fiction—the winners of our 2018 contest—to match the season’s short short days, as well as wintry, dark landscapes in both art and poetry. It also has three longer stories that matched the seasonal mood in a different way; their “darkness” is more metaphorical, but each one still leaves you with a feeling of hope and the presentiment of longer, lighter days ahead. Here’s to some fireside reading! As always, no matter how old you are, you will find inspiring language in this issue. Read the poems aloud and read at least one or two of the stories aloud as well. This way, you go slowly and are more able to savor the language. And, regardless of your age, the photography Emma chose will speak to you. I’d like to highlight “Cuts of the Blade” and “The Lonely Tree.”As you read in Emma’s letter, the issue includes the winners of our short short story contest. On behalf of all of the Stone Soup staff—Emma, Sarah, Jane, and myself—I’d like to thank all of you who sent in your flash fiction to the contest. Whether you placed in our contest or not, I hope that you have found the format of short short fiction useful to you. William’s weekend projects Writing Below, you will find the first-place winner the Flash Fiction Contest, “The Pendulum,” by Sabrina Guo. For the writing project today, write an observation of something around your house, yard, or neighborhood. Make it short, no more than 300 words, which was the constraint that Sabrina was working under. You can describe a pet doing something, as Sabrina did, a place, a feeling, a meal, your room, anything. Unlike a longer story, you may find that there is no beginning, middle, or end as we normally think of them. You may just evoke a place, describing its look and feel but without there necessarily being any action, without there being a plot–something we’d call a vignette. But 300 words is plenty for a short scene that includes characters and even dialogue. As always, if you feel you have succeeded, then submit it to Stone Soup via the ‘submit’ button so Emma can read it. Art The drawing by Marco Lu that you see above, “Tick Tock,” combines the precision of scientific illustration with the imagination of a creative thinker. When I first looked at the drawing I saw a flea in a nautilus’s body. Next, it looked to me like a mechanical creature eating a bug. Now, I understand the image to be that of a single robotic creature. There is so much to look at in Marco’s masterful drawing, so many ideas in it, that I’d like to use it as the inspiration for today’s art project. What strikes me most about the drawing is the flea clock feels so present, so real—so weirdly, naturally alive. At least, that is how it strikes me. I think the real “how” of this drawing is not its accomplished technique. The “how” is in the ideas that Marco brings to life with his pencils. We all have different levels of drawing skill. What is is important to succeed at this project is not that your work is as precise as Marco’s but that your idea is equally well developed. It is the idea of this mechanical flea-like creature with a clock stuck to its side that that gives the work its power. We look forward too seeing what you come up with. Until next week, Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers–keep checking our website to keep up with what’s new! This week, we have another nature video from blogger Sierra Glassman, this one of the wildlife she encountered on a trip to Pantanal, Brazil. Plus, a new book review from Kaiya and Silas, of They Poured Fire on us From the Sky by Benjamin Ajak, Benson Deng, Alephonsion Deng, and Judy A. Bernstein. From Stone Soup, January 2019, & winner of our 2018 Short Short Fiction Contest The Pendulum By Sabrina Guo, 12 Art: “Tick Tock” by Marco Lu, 12 Most nights, my cat stares at the grandfather clock in the living room. She is a grey tabby with splotches of black and white. Her eyes are golden and edged in greenish blue, like a miniature painting of the sun over a forest, or a mood ring, because you never know when the colors will change. When she is calm, you see more of the gold, flickering. But when she is scared, her pupils are large and black, and you notice more of the green, which is the way she looks before the clock at night—her back arched, her fur raised like small tufts of grass. She stares at the oval shape of the

Deep sympathy filled his heart for the writer of the tattered diary Illustration by Annakai Hayakawa Geshlider, 12, for her story, Journeys to the Past, published in Stone Soup, January/February 2008. A note from Sarah Ainsworth Hello, Stone Soup readers! You may know me (Sarah) from subscription help or the blog, but this week I wanted to talk to you about what I am studying: archives. If you have any idea about what an archive is, the picture that comes to mind may be of some dusty shelves full of books or artefacts that haven’t been used in years. But as an aspiring archivist, I want to dispel any notion you might have that archives are only about the past. I want to instead encourage you to think about how archives maintain their relevance when people (like you!) access them in the present. Here’s a very brief introduction to archives: In the Western tradition, archives are institutions charged with taking care of historical records. These records are organized by their creator, whether that creator is an individual (like an author) or an organization (like a university or a hospital). An important concept for archivists is “original order.” This means that when archives receive papers, they have to keep them in the order their creator intended. The archivist is in charge of arranging the collection, describing its contents, and facilitating public access to the records. There are all different kinds of archives. There are archives for countries, like the National Archives in the United Kingdom. Sometimes companies have their own archives, like Disney. And famous authors, like Mark Twain and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, frequently have their own archives. Museums and universities often have archives too. For some physical archives, you need to book an appointment in advance or email the archivist to say you are coming in. But here’s a secret—in many cases, you don’t need to! You can just walk in, talk to the archivist, and ask them for the documents you are interested in. Just be sure to check the website or contact the archive directly. But if you don’t want to leave your house, there are also tons of online archives or archives that have lots of digitized content! The Internet Archive is just one example. Stone Soup has a tradition of publishing excellent historical fiction. In 2002, we published “Kisses from Cecile,” which uses historical records as its inspiration. The author, Marie Agnello, is fascinated by letters she found written by Cécile Cosqueric, a girl in Paris, to her pen pal, Ruth, who happened to be Marie’s great-grandmother. These letters offer Marie a whole new world, a different way of understanding life in 1919. Are there any archives in your area that you can visit? If so, try to plan a trip with a parent or other adult. If not, don’t worry! Look to your attic or basement—or even your computer. What is in your own personal—or your family’s—archive? Maybe your grandparents saved old magazines or newspapers. And if you don’t have access to old documents, remember that there is so much available online. The Library of Congress is a good place to start, but some of my personal favorites are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections. Find a record that speaks to you. What does it tell you about the past? What can you learn from it that you might not learn in a textbook? How can you invent a story around it? I would love to see what you come up with! Please reply to this newsletter or email me at sarah@stonesoup.com if you have any questions or comments about this activity. My best, This week on the blog This week on the blog we have something of a first: a nature video! See the beauty of Anna’s hummingbirds and learn about them with Sierra Glassman’s fascinating commentary. Plus, a review of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl by our regular reviewer, 12-year-old Vandana Ravi. Published in Stone Soup, January/February 2008, and in The Stone Soup Book of Historical Fiction Journeys to the Past Written and illustrated by Annakai Hayakawa Geshlider, 12 The floor creaked as Simon crept through his grandparents’ attic towards a large chest in the corner of the room that had caught his eye. In the dusty attic, cobwebs hung from the shelves and bookcases and a thick layer of dust blanketed the mildew-covered furniture. As he timidly tiptoed towards the chest, Simon felt an air of complete silence in the small room, a feeling that the whole world was waiting for him to discover what lay ahead. Carefully raising the key to the large brass lock that secured the maple-wood chest, Simon slowly turned it between his fingers. The key felt smooth and cool, and it fit perfectly in the keyhole. A satisfactory “click” sounded from the chest and he lifted the lid. Inside it was filled with many magnificent treasures: loads and loads of books. His eyes feasted upon the sight and he immediately reached for one of the musty spines, caution instantly gone from his body. And it was only a few moments later when Simon realized that what lay before him were not normal books. “Tuesday, December 23, 1986,” he read aloud into the dimly lit room. Once again he could almost feel the whole room listening to him. The ancient furniture, the peeling wallpaper covering the cracked walls, and even the spiders stopped weaving their webs to listen to Simon’s eloquent voice. Simon was good at reading aloud, and he knew it, for when he read aloud, he could nearly bring the words alive. “Dear Diary” he continued to his audience. “I know you aren’t much of a book, just a few old scraps bound together, but that was all I could find, just like everything is all I could find. When we are still hungry after dinner it is because those few scraps of meat and broken crackers were all I could find, and when we are cold at night it is because the small knit blanket was all I could find.