Welcome to the Stone Soup Honor Roll! We receive hundreds of submissions every month by kids from around the world. Unfortunately, we can’t publish all the great work we receive. So we created the Stone Soup Honor Roll. We commend all of these talented writers and artists and encourage them to keep creating. – The Editors Scroll down to see all the names (alphabetical by section), including book reviewers and artists. FICTION Srija Biswas, 11 Sally Cheng, 12 Rubina Davila, 13 Elise Dilci, 13 Sammy Fisher, 10 Clara Soledad Jones, 10 Emily Yen, 10 NONFICTION Amani Dhillon, 13 Ava Kisch, 12 Sterling Streatfeild, 11 Alyssa Wu, 12 Peimeng Xu, 10 Justin Zhang, 11 POETRY Talia Bernstein, 11 Madeleine Koelbel, 12 Michael Liu, 12 ART Grace Williams, 12
April 2020
Portraits of Thirteen
I. I used to confuse coffee grounds with the dirt in flower pots, the earthy scent overtaking the musky flowers. A bird nest lies on a shelf in our garage. I do not have the heart to close our garage door at night, to move the nest: the blue eggs unhatched, cushioned in the leaves— unable to escape their home. II. More pressure, my teacher says. I tilt my index finger, clasping the bow skimming the strings of my violin. The amount the bow hair should bounce ingrained in muscle memory. Increase the bow speed. I find the fine line between a gritty sound and the tip of my bow flying off the strings. The rosin puffing gold dust onto my music sheets, onto the black lines, the swirls of the clefs and key signatures, the stickiness finding homes in crevices made by the screws in my music stand. III. I trace the patterns of rock on my shower wall I once believed told my life’s story. I saw my cat, grey stripes curled in a ball, pressed into the tiled wall. Arbitrary like a raffle, fate carves into the rock with the right set of sharp tools. IV. When I was six, I dreamt of a crimson path. Barefoot, I walked on eggs— red, runny yolks. The eggshells poking my feet, the path has no end. Sabrina Guo, 13Oyster Bay, NY Anya Geist, 13Worcester, MA
Self-Portrait: Breath of Ghosts
We never used our fireplace until Hurricane Sandy snapped the power lines. Heavy rain and wind whipped around our dark house as the night grew colder. Our flashlights, the steamy breath of ghosts in the dead of winter. My father’s match struck a stack of miniature ebony logs and turned them alight like the bright orange wings of a monarch butterfly, the dark body of the room made thicker. Over the flame, we boiled water and cooled it just long enough to soak our feet— calm ripples and soft circling soothing us as the night wind raged. The house stayed black, but I memorized how many steps the stairway held, the exact height of each step. Sabrina Guo, 13Oyster Bay, NY Caitlin Goh, 13 Dallas, TX
