Contact William Rubel: william@stonesoup.com Stone Soup was founded in 1973. Through our magazine, Stone Soup, and through anthologies of children’s writing, we are the leading publishers of children’s creative work for homes and schools. We are now tying to increase our social media presence in order to reach a broader audience for the children we publish. Stone Soup is looking for people interested in children’s creativity to join its social media team. Whether your interest is writing by children, children’s art, child composers, child photographers or filmmakers, or your interest is more in the pedagogical side of things, we invite you to share your passion under the Stone Soup banner. Blogging: We offer bloggers an opportunity to write and be heard. Whether you might blog once a month, once week, or every day, we can fit you in to our new blogging program. If you like to write and want to communicate with a larger audience, then consider blogging for Stone Soup. We are looking for teachers, homeschoolers, anyone who has something to say about child art education in the largest sense of the term. Your blog can provide a venue for publishing creative work by students and talking about it, YouTube videos, and more. You will also be free to promote your own work including other blogs you write for, books you’ve written, workshops you lead, etc. Twitter: What we are looking for a few people, each with focused interests, who will Tweet for Stone Soup at least a few times per week. As examples, if you are interested in child composers, we’d like you to Tweet child composers at the Stone Soup Twitter feed. If child filmmakers interest you, please search out information and Tweet it for Stone Soup. Teaching methods, great writing programs, writing by children that you find online and like, this and more is what we would like to be offering within the Stone Soup Twitter feed. Facebook: Facebook sits somewhere between Tweeting and Blogging. If the Facebook format is one that appeals to you, let us know when you get in touch. We are looking for people who will write Facebook posts that engage with our audience. If you you’d like to talk, please write to me, William Rubel, at william@stonesoup.com. Thank you.
Teacher Resources
A Touching Story by a Boy
Maybe you’ve noticed. Stone Soup publishes more writing by girls than by boys. This is not intentional. We would love to include an equal number of contributions by boys and girls in every issue. We can think of two reasons for the imbalance: 1) we receive more submissions from girls than from boys, and 2) many of the stories we receive by boys contain violence, which makes them inappropriate for Stone Soup. However, we do get some great writing by boys on themes that are appropriate for Stone Soup. This month’s featured story (July/August 2015 issue), Grandpa and the Chicken Coop, is a good example. Eleven-year-old Jack Zimmerman, who lives in New York City, is happiest when he is with his grandfather and they are building something together. But Grandpa lives in California and the two don’t get to see each other very often. Jack envies his cousin Logan, who lives closer to Grandpa. The story takes place during the summer after third grade, when at last Jack gets to visit Grandpa, and the two have a grand time building a chicken coop together. But that’s not what the story is really about. Over and over we learn how much Jack loves Grandpa, and why. “My grandpa is so great and does everything I like to do, and for that reason I love him so much,” says Jack, after a phone call with Grandpa that leaves him feeling sad that they are so far apart. Then, when the two finally get together and spend the day building the chicken coop, Jack realizes something: “Each time I would make a mistake he would correct me and teach me how to do it right. That was what I loved most about him during this project.” At the end of their perfect day, Jack gets to tell Grandpa how he feels: “Oh, Grandpa. I love you so much.” Jack is not afraid to express his feelings, and the result is a very touching story about the love between a boy and his grandfather. Not all boys (or girls, for that matter) would feel comfortable expressing these strong feelings. Maybe, like Jack, you have a family story you’d like to share with our readers. Or maybe you’re into fantasy, science fiction, or historical fiction. If your story has a strong plot, believable characters, and colorful descriptions, it is a good candidate for publication in Stone Soup. So, all you boys out there, get busy! We want to publish your work! Take the extra steps to polish your story by reading it over a few times, adding more detail where you think it’s needed and cutting any boring parts you find. No matter what genre you choose, base your characters on people you know, so their thoughts, feelings, and language are realistic. Use settings you’re familiar with, so you can capture the look, feel, and smell of a place. If you need to, ask your parents for help getting your story ready to send to Stone Soup, following our contributors’ guidelines. We’re eager to hear from you!
Poem by a Child, Age 12, Published in 1913 in St. Nicholas Magazine
Poem by a twelve-year-old published in 1913. This poem, A Song Of Home, is a poem written by a child age 12. Originally published in 1913 in the children’s magazine St. Nicholas it is a poem from another time. The poem starts, “Oh, pretty mate of the crimson breast,/Do you remember your little nest….” The poem goes on to speak of the robin living and loving in the cherry tree. I think to better appreciate this poem it is helpful to recall that it was written when writers of natural history routinely wrote about animals, birds, and insects as if they were characters with human attributes. You can open nearly any natural history from the early decades of the 20th century to find engaging stories about the creatures being discussed. It isn’t science writing as we have come to think of it, but it is what makes even encyclopedic works like Dawson’s birds of California (1923) refreshing reading today. The engagement natural history writers had with the creatures they studied as characters in life dramas informs classic works of children’s literature such as Wind in the Willows (1908). I think it is in this literary context that a poem such as A Song of Home should be understood. I realize that the language of this poem with its rhymes and its more ordered rhythm can be distancing. I suggest asking your students or your child to close their eyes when you read to them. Read it a couple times. Let the sound of the language speak for itself. A SONG OF HOME by Evadne Scott (age 12) Oh, pretty mate of the crimson breast, Do you remember your little nest, Far o’er the fields for miles and miles, Where the blue Pigeon River smiles? Soon I know you’ll be on the wing, To the old home, to build and sing; To live and love in the cherry-tree, With tiny birdlings, one, two, three. Carry for me a message dear – A song of home – and sing it near The window where I used to play, When you sing your song at break of day. Take it back to the cherry-tree Take it to your nestlings three; In among the blossoms sing, In among the flowers of spring. Back to my loved ones, dear as ever, Back to the old home by the river; Let me burden your tiny wing With the memories I long to bring.
