Newsletter

Freedom, that’s what pushed out of me on that day Illustrator Sofia deGraff-Ford, 13 for Me, Myself, and My Personality by Simon Gonzalez, 11. Published March/April 2006. A note from William Rubel I am back from Kenya! Wow! It is very difficult to explain what a totally different place I have been. Before I tell one story from my trip, about commissioning a house for $80, I’d like first to call your attention to the incredibly dynamic illustration of a roller coaster rider that my colleague, Jane Levi, has found for you, then remind you about a project I wrote about earlier in the Summer, and mention some Stone Soup news. To the roller coaster! What a great picture! What an evocative image! The tousled hair! You feel the lead boy’s feeling of excitement, the adrenaline rush that makes the roller coaster so addictive to some riders. As for me—I live in Santa Cruz, California, home to the Giant Dipper. It was built in 1924, making it one of the oldest roller coasters in the world, and one of the few remaining wooden roller coasters still in operation. Is it fun? Yes, it is. I won’t say I go on it often, but I will say that the memory of the creaky climb up to the top of the Giant Dipper and then the rush of the whoosh down the steep slope stays with you. It is terrifying and exhilarating—just the feeling memorialized in Sofia deGraff-Ford’s fabulous drawing published in Stone Soup twelve years ago, to illustrate Simon Gonzales’ evocative piece of short short fiction (below). Summer Journals Just before leaving for Kenya I wrote to you about keeping a Summer journal. How many of you have? I know, fewer of us are keeping a journal than I have fingers on my right hand. Which includes me! I started out good and strong, made my first entry in the San Francisco airport, my heart full of good intentions. But then…  However, I am delighted to say that there is one reader who has set all of us a good example: ten-year-old Abhi Sukhdial has sent us a couple of pages from his summer journal of his family trip to visit his grandparents in India. We will post his journal extract on our blog next week, so do look out for Abhi’s great word-picture and drawings, and let it inspire your own efforts. There is plenty of summer left for journalling! I’m going to get back to journal writing myself in a couple of weeks’ time. For now, whatever your age, if you are reading this Newsletter, create something this weekend that memorializes this weekend—a photograph, a drawing, a poem, a story. Get that journal started. No excuses—just do it! Over the next few weeks I will share a few photographs from my trip. Along with your journals, I’d like some of you to share with Stone Soup photographs from trips you have made this summer, too. Stone Soup for Schools – Chromebooks and iPads A couple of orders have just come in from schools subscribing to Stone Soup for Chromebook and iPads. This kind of full school subscription, that lets every student and teacher use Stone Soup on their device in school, is our bread and butter. This is the way we reach the greatest number of students, and it provides us with the income that lets us keep doing what we do through the Children’s Art Foundation. So, we’d like to say a huge thank you to all the schools who subscribe to Stone Soup. If you are a teacher or a parent at a school that doesn’t yet have full access to Stone Soup, please lobby your school to subscribe to Stone Soup for Chromebooks and iPads, or to add Stone Soup to the list of resource options your Charter School offers to parents. It’s easy to give the option of Stone Soup access to every student in your school. Schools subscriptions are on sale in our online store. And if you need any extra support from us to make it happen, just write to me by replying to this newsletter, or drop Sarah Ainsworth a line via education@stonesoup.com. Kenya It is difficult explaining how different where I go in Kenya is from where many of Stone Soup’s readers tend to live. This photo gives you a little bit of an idea. The woman on the left is called England. She is the sister of my friend Haile with whom I stay. The other three women are England’s friends. They are all from the Samburu tribe. If you look at a map you may be able to find the town of Wamba which is about an hour-and-a-half’s walk from where I stay by the Lengusaka River. Lengusaka is just North of the equator on a high plateau, so the days and nights are about equal in length, and it neither gets super hot nor super cold. Together, England and her friends help people out by building houses. I was tired of sleeping in a tent and so I asked Halie whether it would be possible to build a small house so my daughter and I could sleep on a mattress up off the ground. Haile said, yes! No problem! My sister builds houses! So, for $80, England and her friends built me a small house out of branches and mud. The only tools they used were a machete for cutting the wood, a shovel for digging the clay and a bucket to carry the water for mixing the clay. The house has two rooms, a bedroom and a kitchen/sitting room. It is small, but in much of the world people live in very small houses. You can see the house under construction just behind the women—the roof isn’t on yet. The line of vertical sticks are the basis of the walls. Behind the house you see sand. That is the Lengusaka River, a seasonal river which in

I feel the thrill of the moment as my coconut wobbles, surprisingly fast, past me Illustrator Ester Luna, 12 for Racing Coconuts by Rachel Barglow, 10. Published July/August 2015. A note from Emma Wood Announcing the winners of our short short fiction contest First Place:      “The Pendulum” by Sabrina Guo, 12 Second Place:  “The Sycamore Tree” by Mira Johnson, 8 Third Place:     “A Dinner Party” by Anyi Sharma, 10 Fourth Place:   “The Hummingbird” by Clare McDermott, 12 Honorable Mentions: Symbiotic by Madeline Pass, 13 Potato Diaries by Christian Goh, 10 The Mystical Trees by Hannah Lee, 10 A cat literally watching time pass. A magical tree that heals and protects an injured bunny being chased by a dog. A mysterious hermit who throws a lavish dinner party. A hummingbird whose light, joyful presence delights the whole forest. These are descriptions of the stories that won our short short fiction contest—and a very small sample of the range of stories we received. I was amazed, reading these submissions, at how much can fit into 300 words. Some of you chose to focus on describing a moment or scene in sparkling, clear prose. Others chose to tell an action-packed narrative. Both types worked, and both felt much longer than the word limit. Short short fiction, or flash fiction as it is also called, reminds me of a clown car: each story managed to pack in so much more than I thought possible. I want to directly thank everyone who had the inspiration to write a story and the courage to submit it to our contest. Your excellent, imaginative writing made our choices very difficult. We encourage all of you to continue writing and to submit your work to us again soon. Flash fiction is an excellent genre to work in, especially if you are new to writing fiction. Repetition is the mother of learning—and the shorter the story you are writing, the easier it will be to keep repeating and keep learning. Until next week Read the latest updates on our blog Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at stonesoup.com! This week, Sabrina Guo – who also happens to be our flash fiction contest winner! – has written a thought provoking, compassionate and informative article on The Refugee Children Crisis. Please read it and share your thoughts with her and with us on the website. From Stone Soup July/August 2015 Racing Coconuts By Rachel Barglow, 10 Illustrated by Ester Luna, 12 “Truth or Dare?” my best friend Jackson challenges me. I glance around at my circle of friends like they might have an answer. “Dare,” I say confidently. My friends and I always get together Saturday evenings. We’re gathered around a campfire eating marshmallows on a beach in Florida. Just then, Jackson grins wickedly at a tall palm tree with four coconuts cradled under its huge green leaves, and then back at me. “Simon—I dare you to a coconut race with me. Take it or leave it.” “I’ll take it,” I say, feeling my face turn red like it always does when I’m excited. Jackson and I know the drill. We each jog over to separate palm trees and shake them vigorously. When the tree gives up a coconut, I catch it as it falls. Jackson also gets a coconut. Then we drag our feet in the sand, creating one wide racetrack going for maybe twenty-five feet down a hill. The hill is steep enough to give the coconuts momentum. Jackson and I go to the starting line and bend down, the coconuts barely touching the ground. I feel the tense feeling of excitement in the air, my heart beating quickly. Everyone has their eye on our coconuts. A surfer shouts loudly to a friend in the distance. No one budges, no one hears. I will win this race. I will. “On your mark, get set…” Jackson starts, my heart beating even quicker. “On your mark, get set…” everyone cries, “Go!”  …/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.

I glided up the side of the bowl to show Tim how well I could do a hard flip ‘I glided up the side of the bowl to show Tim how well I could do a hard flip’ Illustrator Alicia Betancourt, 12 for Skate Disaster by Alex Chan-Kai, 11. Published July/August 2001. A note from Emma Wood We have been working our way through the many excellent submissions we received for the short, short fiction contest and are planning to announce the results shortly—thank you to all who shared their work! For this week, though, we are excited to announce our next contest: concrete poetry. A concrete poem is simply a piece of art in which both the visual and written element are essential. That means, if you just see the image, without the words, you lose something. That also means, if you just hear the poem, without seeing its layout on the page, you lose something, too. A concrete poem is one you need to see, not just hear! ‘Swan and Shadow’ by John Hollander (1969) A concrete poem can be a poem that takes the shape of its subject Many readers might understand a concrete poem to be a poem that takes the shape of its subject—a poem about a swan in the shape of a swan, for instance. You can see in this in the poem, “Swan and Shadow,” by John Hollander. ‘A Sonnet in Motion’ by Paula Claire A concrete poem can also be a piece of abstract visual art Though I encourage you to experiment with this first kind of concrete poem, and to submit them to our contest, I also hope you will experiment with another type of concrete poem—one with a different relationship to space and shape. In the examples below, the words and letters do not take a recognizable shape. But the piece is visually interesting, and the relationship between the words, letters, and the layout creates a piece of art. The deadline for this contest is August 15, 11:59pm. You can read the full details on the Contests section of our blog (from tomorrow), and read further details and submit as usual via Submittable, here. Until next week More great writing at stonesoup.com Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at stonesoup.com! Antara’s 10 Fun Things To Do This Summer Nina Vigil’s book review of Evangeline of the Bayou by Jan Eldregde Abhi Sukhdial’s book review of The Crossover by Kwame Alexander Plus, if you missed Editor Emma’s interview talking about what makes a great submission, you can also check that out at our blog. As I continued to stare out onto the empty street, I noticed something very strange From Stone Soup July/August 2001 Skate Disaster By Alex Chan-Kai, 11 Illustrated by Alicia Betancourt, 12 I woke up as a small gap of light beamed into my eyes from a hole in the curtain. I opened my bedroom window to see what kind of a day it was. The sun was radiating on my face, but the only thing I could feel was the heat. There was not even the slightest breeze in the air; it gave me a strange feeling. My house is near the ocean, so I was accustomed to early morning breezes. But today the air was as still as a stagnant pond. I continued to look out my bedroom window, and I was pleased to see that there was not a cloud in the sky. I knew that it would be a perfect day for skateboarding. Even though the day was nice and sunny, something tugged at my mind, but I could not put my finger on it. I had an uneasy feeling that seemed to consume my thoughts. As I continued to stare out onto the empty street, I noticed something very strange. Usually on a Saturday morning, all the dogs on the street are barking, wandering around, or even terrorizing a few cats. Today, not a bark could be heard, or a single dog could be seen. I could not imagine where all the dogs could be hiding. It was almost like something was going to happen, but I could not figure out what. Despite my uneasy feelings, I was determined to have a good day. I jumped into my favorite pair of cargo pants, threw on my blue Tech Deck shirt, and slipped into a comfortable pair of black Emericas. I tossed the cat over my shoulder, and we both bounced down the stairs to get a bite to eat. As I was shoving a bacon-and-cheese breakfast sandwich into my mouth, I flipped on my favorite television show, “Junkyard Wars.” I was just getting settled into my chair when a news flash rudely interrupted my program. A reporter appeared and announced that several small earthquakes had rattled a town, just twenty-seven miles away. He said that these quakes measured 4.1 on the Richter scale…/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.