Newsletter

“Admiring Ocean” by Nataly Ann Vekker, 12 (Towson, MD), Acrylics Published in Stone Soup March 2020 A note from William On behalf of Emma Wood, our editor, and the rest of our Stone Soup staff, I want you all to know that we will be here for you during these difficult times. My daughter, who is in eighth grade, and I have been in voluntary lockdown for a week already. We each are going to have to dig deep to find the personal resources to maintain our spirts! Art is a treasure that becomes even more valuable in bad times. Stone Soup can offer you images that can take you to an evocative place, like this extraordinary painting of a wave by Nataly Ann Vekker, and fabulous stories, like “Slaying Monsters,” below, both in our current issue. Stone Soup can also offer you inspiration and goals for your own creative work. During this extended crisis when all of you are unexpectedly home from school, we at Stone Soup, with your help, intend to offer you a range of activities and opportunities to get creative and remain focused. Yesterday morning we had a staff meeting via Skype to discuss ideas. We have come up with a few projects we can start next week, and have notions about others that are a little more complex. Before deciding on everything, we also want first to hear from you. This means all of you—those of you who are 13 and under and parents, grandparents, teachers, and former Stone Soup authors and readers. Please fill out our questionnaire! Use the questionnaire to rate our ideas, tell us yours, join a focus group later in the week, volunteer to help with outreach, and lots more. If questionnaires are not your thing, then simply reply to this email with ideas or to volunteer and I will fold you into the focus group that we are organizing for later in the week. Starting Monday we are expanding our offering: Daily writing and art prompts will be posted at Stonesoup.com, on our Facebook page, and announced via Twitter. Let us know in the questionnaire if you would welcome a daly email about this as well. Our entire Blog section will come out from behind our paywall, giving all visitors to Stonesoup.com unlimited access to our collections of book reviews, opinion pieces and other prose by kids, our activities pages, multi-media collections and more. The monthly limit of free material from the Magazine available to non-subscribers will increase from 4 to 8 for the duration of the crisis. We will implement a new Resources page at Stonesoup.com, of other websites to visit for creative inspiration, and We are also bringing forward the launch of our second annual Book Contest. Please share this news with other kids, parents, educators, grandparents and other relatives, community groups, and educators–anyone who you feel would benefit from the combination of reading material, writing activities and creative inspiration Stone Soup can offer at any time, and especially during this crisis. Rather than suggest a new project this week, I’d like to refer you back to Editor Emma Wood’s thoughtful letter from last week’s newsletter. Her birth-year history project is a big one, and appropriate for this time. You can also make the most of all the Activities already on our website, Stonesoup.com, under the Blog section. Stay safe! Look out for our first new project Monday and every day for your own use—or to forward to other young people who you know would appreciate it. 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! We published a short piece called “Observations on COVID-19” by new blogger Sofia, 9. It’s a scary time right now, without our normal routines. Take a look at Sofia’s blog and use the comments section to share what you think. Sascha reviews the book Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga. Read what Sascha thinks about the book, which revolves around a young Syrian refugee who moves to the United States. Do you have more time than usual on your hands? Are you getting a bit more reading done? Consider reviewing a book or writing a blog and submitting it to us! From Stone Soup March 2020 Slaying Monsters By Liam Hancock, 11 (Danville, CA) Illustrated by Nataly Ann Vekker, 12 (Towson, MD) The usual morning fog is persistent today. The long jetty near Pillar Point is swallowed by the soupy grey, seemingly disappearing into the abyss. Through the panoramic view of my bedroom window, I see Half Moon Bay coming to life in the early morning. A man is taking a jog down the steep beach with his stumpy bulldog. A couple of early commuters’ headlights are slicing through the fog and heading into the overshadowing mountains. The occasional surf shop is lighting up and un-shuttering its windows. The ocean is roaring today, and an excitement bubbles up inside me as I remember that today is Mavericks. I hear the hissing of bacon hitting the frying pan and the hum of the espresso machine. My mouth waters as I stumble down the stairs. Mom is plating up my breakfast. A pink box is set in the center of the table. Wait, a pink box? I settle into my chair. “Donuts, Mom?” I ask, shocked. I open them up . . . My favorite—maple bars. “C’mon. An athlete doesn’t eat donuts on a day like this. My stomach will weigh me down more than the waves themselves!” Mom gives me one of those mom looks. “Now, last time I checked, donuts don’t weigh hundreds of thousands of pounds. And I spent good money on these, so eat. Mom’s orders.” I groan, then my wall caves in. If William Morgan has one weakness, it’s maple bar donuts. I dig in, cover the donuts with that greasy bacon, and feel that amazing feeling of a future heart attack. I swear, if this is what they eat in Vermont, I’m gonna

Perspective H20Caitlin Goh, 12 (Dallas, TX), published in Stone Soup March 2020 A note from Emma Do you know what was happening in the year you were born? I was born in the year 1988, and I had to look up what was going on in the world then. 1988, like 2020, was an election year in the US—George H.W. Bush won. There were numerous man-made and environmental disasters. The movie Big with Tom Hanks was released. The Soviet Union began to dissolve. The Phantom of the Opera opened on Broadway. There was a Winter Olympics. NASA launched its shuttle Discovery into space for the first time. Many, many other things happened too. When I read through the lists I find online, it’s one disaster and political crisis after another. This is strangely comforting. So much is going on in the world right now, especially with the spread of COVID-19. Much feels uncertain for all of us. Looking at history is a reminder that history has always been one crisis after another. One day, we will look back and say, “Remember the self-quarantine in 2020?” This week, consider finding out what was happening in the year you were born. You can search online or you can ask a parent, older sibling, or relative. How was the world different? Maybe what you learn will inspire a story, poem, or artwork! Finally, I hope you will take the painting and poem included in this newsletter as a reminder to spend time outdoors during this hectic time. Simply looking at a tree waving gently in the wind or at a sky filled with cumulus clouds makes me feel calmer and happier. 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! Daniel talks about the powerful effects of grief in his review of the book Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan. Learn about the main character’s struggle in coping with the deaths of family members and how she found ways to move forward. Why can’t we just make water? You might have wondered this before, especially with all the talk of clean water that has been happening lately. Well, it’s not so easy, Lucinda explains in her blog “The Science of Making Water.” Read Lucinda’s explanation of the chemistry, as well as some unfortunate historical examples. From Stone Soup February 2020 In My Liquid Tourmaline By Lauren Giglia, 11 (Irvine, CA) In this shimmering liquid tourmaline A teal and gold-breasted kingfisher whistles in the green pines As the lake’s cool breath whispers in my ear She speaks of laughing trout gliding in her belly Humans pouring acid in her veins And her tree friends she has lost I am wrapped in the scent of salt and sweetness As the freezing rush of cold water billows about my hand And the smooth trout wriggle across the lake Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. 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.

Your Day to Shine (watercolor)Story Kummer, 12 (St. Louis, MO), published in Stone Soup March 2020 A note from William On behalf of the entire Stone Soup staff I’d like to thank all of you who read our newsletter for doing so. It really means a lot to us that so many of you take the time every weekend to check in with us. Thank you. Wow! What a painting! Story Kummer’s Your Day to Shine is the cover image for the March print issue.  For me, this painting is transfixing. Spend some time looking at it. Let yourself relax into the painting and, ideally, let yourself begin to daydream. Use the painting as the staring point for reverie. Dawn is about light. That is true whether it is a foggy dawn—which is very common where I live—or a glorious, radiant dawn like the one that Story memorializes in this painting. Dawn is also about promise. Everything is possible in the morning, when the day is young. What makes Story’s painting so effective is the power of its light and the strongly organized space, with the rolling hills, reminiscent of ocean swells, cut through with an undulating road. The road that will take us to our own shining destiny. Story depicts the sun itself at the center of the yellow-orange-red part of the rainbow spectrum. This is the power position pumping out the light that shifts monochrome night into multicolored day. It is the light that wakes the birds, that warms the air—setting the diurnal insects flying and releasing the rich smells of the day. This would be a powerful painting even without the tower, but for me the tower makes the work much more interesting. It introduces the potential for narrative. Are we setting out from the tower or walking toward it? Does the sun shine on our faces or on our backs? I want you to work with this idea that the new day is a day of infinite potential. You can do it with art or story. Think about what makes dawn the dawn. Choose a bright, glowing morning for your setting or something more subdued, like the foggy dawns so common where I live. Whether you create a drawing, painting, or photograph to be viewed or a story or poem to be read, create something that, like Story’s painting, says something about the new day being one where your viewer or reader will shine like a brilliant morning sun, even if in your work the real sun is obscured by a fog bank or an overcast sky. Now a different note: “William’s Journal,” the story featured in this newsletter, is about war. And its aftermath. Some say that all war is senseless. In this story, Eli Spaulding, the author, doesn’t tell us what the war was about. It is implied that the general, William, and the survivors who live in proximity to the battlefield were the “good guys,” but we don’t actually know anything about the why of this war and thus the suffering it caused. Which raises the question, does it matter? The protagonist’s father was driven insane by an awful battle, with severe consequences for his family, even long after the war ended. As Eli puts it, “He served as a ground soldier and when he came back, he was never the same.” If you have had relatives who have fought in a war, died there, or come back changed, then perhaps something from their story could form the kernel for something you write that might help you and your family process what happened to your loved one, or to those of you who didn’t go to war but still have to deal with very personal consequences. As always, if you love what you create, please use our submission form to upload it to Stone Soup so our editor, Emma Wood, can consider it for publication. 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! Shihoon writes about her dream on the blog this week: unification for Korea. In her words, “I want to get rid of the ceasefire line that is blocking the path from South Korea to North Korea. My dream is studying with the North Korea students and going on a trip to North Korea.” Another post from our resident science fiction expert, Marco. This week, Marco describes a few Cyberpunk derivatives. Want to learn about Dieselpunk, Solarpunk, and more? Click on the link above to read Marco’s post. From Stone Soup February 2020 William’s Journal By Eli Spaulding, 11 (Newark, DE) (Art by Sophia Torres, 12 (Chicago, IL)) “Still nothing?” asks Peter, his nose pointed down at me like a beak. He has an aura of disdain floating around him. Peter is never happy because he’s having a hard time with cancer, and the doctor said that his days are numbered. Leave me alone, I think to myself. I’ve been digging in this hot, dry dirt since five a.m. And I just want to go home. But I just say, “Yep, still nothing.” I have a job at a dig site to find clues from a battle in World War III. My father said that it was one of the bloodiest events in history. He served as a ground soldier and when he came back, he was never the same. He started taking drugs and gambling to buy more drugs. He sold our house to buy more, and we went into poverty. My mother ran away with me when he had sold almost everything we had. She got a job and raised me by herself. And now I have a job at a dig site studying the war that drove my dad insane. It has been a mystery for 18 years now what happened to the soldiers that were here. A storm came through and when it passed, all that was left was mud. The same mud that I am getting paid to dig through for the museum. “You