Newsletter

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

With each round of the pedals I felt more confident that this was the right thing to do Illustrator Sofia deGraff-Ford, 13 for Friends Forever? by Michael Scognamiglio,13 Published September/October 2006. A note from William Rubel In the last two months I have been to Taipei, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Mount Vernon, Virginia! Whew! As I write this at home on a lovely California spring afternoon, the sky blue, the Pacific ocean with its cloud bank hanging on the horizon just a few minutes away, this in-your-face portrait of a bike rider makes me want to jump up from my desk, put on my helmet and head out the door! At least for me, Sofia deGraff-Ford has done a fabulous job evoking the feeling of riding a bike. I think that evoking feelings is one function of art. If any Newsletter readers care to go on a bike ride (or feel the energy of another outdoor activity) this weekend, and then turn the experience into art, go for it. I am sure our Editor, Emma Wood, will be interested in seeing what you come up with. Flash Fiction Contest: Reminder! The deadline for our Flash Fiction Contest is midnight, June 15. Flash fiction is the art of the short-short story. Or, perhaps better put as the short-short-short-impossibly-and-yet-somehow-doable short story. How short? Three hundred words short! I’ll be honest. When Emma emailed me that she wanted us to have a contest for flash fiction I had no idea what she had in mind. So, I did what I am sure most of you do: I looked up flash fiction in the Wikipedia. The term means ultra short fiction. There isn’t a precisely defined word count, but the upper limit seems to be about 1000 words. Emma has structured our contest to have a limit of 300 words. Within that limit, your story must be complete. One of the most famous writers of all time is the ancient Greek writer, Aesop. He lived from 620 BCE to 546 BCE, more than 2500 years ago. He is famous for his fables. The English translation of his fable about the mouse who helps the lion is just 167 words. Here is an index to all of the Aesop fables. Check them out. Aesop’s flash fiction is some of the most famous writing there has ever been. To still be read after 2500 years! That is something. My father did a lot of writing over the last twenty years of his life. He wrote several volumes of his memoirs. A couple of authors I had read in my twenties who wrote (what I now know is) flash fiction had really impressed me with the power of the short-short form. I’d read some of my father’s stories and I’d say, “Dad, these stories are great. But, Dad, these two paragraphs here are brilliant! They tell your whole story.” But, unlike Aesop, he couldn’t bear to give up all those words he’d worked so hard to bring together! But, we think maybe some of you can! Please go to the Flash Fiction contest page and read Emma’s guidelines and suggestions. If you don’t feel instantly inspired then perhaps try going through stories you have already written looking for parts that could be extracted and polished into a tiny jewel. I have one last piece of advice. This is based on my own experience as a writer. When your work is finished, but before you send it in to our contest, read it aloud to yourself. Listen to what you have written. This will enable you to catch tiny errors, like duplicate words that you might not have potted when reading it. And, more importantly, you will hear whether the piece sounds perfect to your ear.  Make minor changes, if needed, and then send it in. Good Luck! Creative responses to current events One last thing. As I think most of you know there was another school shooting on Friday. This time, in a small town in Texas. Emma has recently received a few pieces that talk about school shootings, and we thought this would be a good time to share them with our readers in a blog post. You can read our special feature, Kids React to Gun Violence, at our website. If any of you reading the Newsletter who are age 13 and under have something you want to say about the subject of school shootings in America, then please send it to us. There are links for submitting stories, poems, and art on the submissions page. If you have written nonfiction or something that doesn’t seem to fit in a category you see there, then please upload them to the blog category. We hope you are all getting prepared for a creative Summer. Until next week   This week on the Stone Soup Blog Don’t miss our Special Feature: Kids React to Gun Violence, with three newly published pieces of work: ‘There is a lockdown on October 23, 2015’ by Aidan McClure, 7 ‘Lullaby’ by Rebecca Beaver, 13 ‘Seventeen Graves’ by Kate Kuan, 11Also new this week, a thought-provoking feature on another important topic: Be Aware of Global Warming, by Antara And finally, this weekend seems like a good time to revisit Lucy Regnier Kline’s piece from March 2018, 5 Ways Children Can Make a Difference   From Stone Soup September/October 2006 Friends Forever? By Michael Scognamiglio,13 Illustrated by Sofia deGraff-Ford, 13   “Wheeee!” We must have been going fifty, maybe sixty miles per hour in his new Whaler speedboat, and I loved every minute of it. Janet, lying down in the bow to perfect her supermodel tan, gripped onto the handrails at this sudden shift of speed. I laughed next to Jesse, my six-foot-one, fifteen-year-old friend from two houses down. His sandy-blond hair was erupting from his worn Boston Red Sox cap that looked like it went through just as much abuse as the team itself. His emerald eyes were shielded by a brand new, gleaming pair of black Oakleys so as to impress the ladies. I on

“That’s practice for today, so dry off and go home” Illustrator Alicia Betancourt, 13 for Guts and a Few Strokes by Eve Asher, 10 Published March/April 2002. A note from William Rubel I am going to keep my comments short his week as I don’t want to detract from Editor Emma Wood’s call for reviews of classic books, below. What I’d like to say today is that being a reader and being a writer go hand-in-hand. While it isn’t true that all readers are writers, it is true that all writers are readers. In the last two months, our colleague Sarah Ainsworth has posted approximately thirty book reviews by our young reviewers. This is nearly three times the number of book reviews we used to publish in an entire year! Many thanks to Sarah, and an especial thanks to all of you who are now regularly sending us reviews. We love to be able to publish your thoughts to share with other readers! We also love to see the comments that people are leaving in the book review section. Anna Rowell, reviewer of the graphic novel Young Beowulf: the Bloodbound Oath has received a comment and a thank you from the author himself (thank you, Alexis Farjado!), while one of our teacher readers, Sue Granzella, is taking up our reviewers’ recommendation of Save me a Seat. Well done, reviewers Sarina Banker and Nandini Krishnan! As Emma is talking about classics, I would  also like to refer you to the three reviews of classics that have just been posted to the website: The Iliad, reviewed by Che Amaral. A Midsummer Night’s Dream reviewed by Justin Park, and Oliver Twist reviewed by Vivaan Kartik. One of the signs that these are ‘classics’ is that I don’t need to tell you who wrote them. If you haven’t read them yet and want to know more, their reviews are a great place to start. Until next week William A call for reviews of the classics from Editor Emma As you know, the team at Stone Soup has been hard at work bringing our new digital-only book reviews section to life on the website. We hope you will visit it and be inspired to read more books! As we worked on this we realized that there are lots of reviews missing. Many of the classic books that lit up my childhood—and continue to inspire and change kids around the world—simply do not have a Stone Soup review. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, The Wind in the Willows, Charlotte’s Web, and The Golden Compass—among many, many more—are missing from our archives. We can’t believe it! Do you have a classic that you love? Or one you’ve been meaning to read? Or maybe you just need to fill out your summer reading list! Whatever the case, consider taking a look at our list of classic books in need of reviewing. We would love to hear your thoughtful, intelligent, enthusiastic, or even negative takes on any and all of these books.  We would also love to hear from you if you think there are classic books missing from this list and missing from our website, even if you don’t want to review them yourself. We are sure that someone will! A friend of mine who edits book reviews and writes them for a living told me that the best book reviews read like a smart conversation between the writer and their closest friend. I hope you will keep that in mind as you begin working on your reviews. When you’re ready, click the Submit button in this Newsletter or at our website to send them to us. Happy reading and writing! Emma   “Hey, you guys, we oughta show Brown what we’re made of!” From Stone Soup March/April 2002 Guts and a Few Strokes Written by Eve Asher, 10 Illustrated by Alicia Betancourt, 13 Stroke. Stroke. Breathe left. Straight legs, follow through with the arms. These are usually my thoughts while swimming the hundred-meter freestyle. For those of you who don’t know, that’s two laps. I can do it in about a minute and twenty seconds, sometimes more, sometimes less. Oh, and my name is Sophia, been swimming for five years in that very pool, been on the team for three years. Had I been going more slowly and looking ahead, I would have noticed that the seemingly endless deep blue of the chlorinated water was lightening into white. I would have noticed that I could no longer see the stems of sunlight poking through the water like sprouts poking through the air. This time, all I noticed was the green line on the bottom of the pool which would mean I would do a flip turn and start on another length if I wasn’t on my last one. I knew what to expect. I felt the warm sunlit wall under my hand. Done! You know, when I’m underwater, I can’t hear or see the rest of the world. I’ve escaped to what I call Blueland. In Blueland, I don’t have a meet in two days, I’m not stressing over fraction homework, I’m not watching whatever I eat because I’m allergic to peanuts, I’m just floating in blue and relaxing. Everything fades away into the blue. But, unfortunately, I’m not in Blueland now and I wasn’t then. Coach Morris called us together. “Did you notice how Sophia’s arms came out of the water straight? That’s following through. Keep that in mind. Remember, not only do swimmers with correct strokes go faster, they also don’t get disqualified. That’s practice for today, so dry off and go home.” Every practice ended with “dry off and go home.” It signaled us to disperse, which we did. Always. “That’s practice for today, so dry off and go home” Later, while gossiping in the locker room, Maggie, whom we trusted to know the most about the pool (no one knew why), gave us startling news. “The pool’s getting a new manager and they might fire Coach Morris,” she said, amazingly calm. Out came a scream from all of us of,