May/June 2023

Stone Soup Honor Roll: May/June 2023

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. ART Oliver Berger, 8 Isabella Bhagwandin, 12 Claire Cui, 11 Delilah Prager, 12 Isabella Song, 11 Elodie Weinzierl, 13 MEMOIR Graham Hettlinger, 11 Brayden Mogilinski, 10 Aden Olian, 11 Caitlin See, 11 Shreya Sharath, 13 Chanho Yang, 11 POETRY Noa, 5 Sonia Kamnitzer, 11 Marielle Miller, 11 Summer Torres, 12 STORIES Grace Chen, 12 Arianna Kanji, 13 Sara Kalhous, 10 Andrew Ang Wei Ken, 9 Amara G. Maddux, 8 Zoe Pazner, 11 Selvi Radia, 11 Olivia Rhee, 12 Benjamin Sanchez, 7 Gemma Schwartz, 9

Highlight from Stonesoup.com

From the Stone Soup Blog Jonathan Livingston Seagull Several people are kept in a cave. They have lived in the cave their entire lives, chained to the ground, watching blurry shadows dance on the stone wall in front of them. They think that this is all there is to the world. But one day, one of the captives breaks free of his bonds and leaves the cave. He is amazed by all he sees outside, but when he returns to tell the other prisoners of his findings, nobody believes him. Instead, they kill him. This story is known as the allegory of the cave. Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, wrote it in reference to his teacher, Socrates, another Greek philosopher. Socrates was sentenced to death and made to drink poison for “corrupting the youth” with his new ideas. But what would have happened if Socrates was not killed but exiled? And what if he returned one day, years and years later, to teach others about the wonders he discovered while banished? And what if Socrates and the other Athenians were not humans but seagulls? Okay, the last question probably sounds extremely weird, but this is basically the plot of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a novella written by Richard Bach and first published more than fifty years ago. At the start of the story, a seagull named Jonathan feels incomplete. Unlike the rest of the flock, he yearns for more than food. He wants to learn more about flight. He keeps experimenting, and one day learns how to fold his wings, using only his wingtips for maximum speed. After he bursts through the flock at terminal velocity, he is called forward and banished for disrupting his community. He lives a quiet, peaceful life on the Far Cliffs for many years, and then he goes to the next stage of his existence, in which he realizes his true purpose: to return to the flock and teach them the wonders of flight. I was apprehensive at first about this novella, because it starts off slowly and the action only gradually builds up. But once I warmed up to the story, I saw that it was written wonderfully, with many sensory details. I could feel Jonathan’s heartbreak, his fear, and also his euphoria whenever he discovered a new flying trick. Readers will also learn a lot about amazing aerial acrobatics and flight mechanics from the author, Richard Bach, a pilot who has written many fiction and nonfiction books about flying. Even though I am not a flight expert, I could still picture Jonathan’s aerial whirls and spins in my mind’s eye. I also enjoyed the black-and-white photographs of seagulls in flight, taken by Russell Munson, which illustrate my copy of the book. I would recommend Jonathan Livingston Seagull to eight-year-olds and up. You can read the rest of Nova’s review at https://stonesoup.com/stone-soup-blog. About the Stone Soup Blog We publish original work—writing, art, book reviews, multimedia projects, and more—by young people on the Stone Soup Blog. You can read more posts by young bloggers, and find out more about submitting a blog post, here: https://stonesoup.com/stone-soup-blog/.

Cousins (Part I)

Nicky’s rivalry with her perfect cousin grows as she learns they have even more in common than she thought This is the first installment of Emily Chang’s novella, which received honorable mention in our 2022Book Contest. We will be publishing the novella over the course of three issues. Prologue (I’m no literary nut, no matter what Aunt Illy thinks. Laila was the one who gave me the idea to write this story, so I’ll start it the way she did.) If you asked me what my biggest problem was during the first eleven years of my life, I would have told you it was Laila Alicie Kenton von Luzenborg. Also known as my cousin. Also known as the most annoying person on the planet. But the summer before seventh grade changed all that completely. And I owe it all to Ms. Fleming. Dear Aunt Illy, Sorry I haven’t written back in a while. There are a lot of things I’ve been putting off, like my summer homework, even though it’s already August. Not too smart, I know, but it’s a huge reading and math packet that will take forever to get through. And I guess starting it will just remind me that I’m about to start seventh grade, which I am NOT looking forward to. Thanks for asking about swimming. It’s going pretty well for me, since I always love swimming, though it’s also part of the craziness. Our last swim meet is in less than a week, and we’ve been practicing every day. The top three of the whole meet (Clearfield and our competitors) will get to go to the H2O World Heights Championships. It’s a really big nationwide program, and I’ve always wanted to go there. I’m not completely sure I’ll get in, though. Last meet I clocked a great PR for the two-hundred free, which is my favorite race, and Coach Hattie always lets me do it. But the competition is against Hatcheton Central, and we’ve never beaten them in total points yet. They’re always getting awesome swimmers from all over the state, but Clearfield is just us. So I’m nervous too. Do you think you’ll be able to come to the swim meet? It’s next Wednesday. If you can’t, that’s okay, but I’m always glad to see you. And maybe I’ll have a better chance of winning if you come. Anyway, how have you been? You said that you got a side job at a bakery—how is that going? —Nicky Chapter 1: Why I Was Digging through My Neighbor’s Trash Cans on Saturday Morning   It was 9:30 in the morning, and I was going down the sidewalk toward Ms. Fleming’s house. My Saturday mornings always went this way—I’d walk a few blocks to where my elderly neighbor lived, help her out with any odd jobs she needed done, and then it would be time for swim practice. Today would be one of our last practices of the season. I was looking forward to training again with my teammates, perfecting our strokes and strategies one last time before the swim meet with Hatcheton Central. At this moment, though, I had other things to focus on. I helped Ms. Fleming out every Saturday, and I knew I couldn’t bail out on her just because I was anxious to go to swim team today. She needed my full attention. Ms. Fleming was in her seventies and had lived in the neighborhood for as long as I could remember. I’d been helping her out for the past few years, from the time my mom and I met her when she was giving out gingersnaps at a block party. Since then, I’d gotten to know her quite well. Odd jobs would turn into odd conversations and stories about Ms. Fleming’s life, which were always fascinating. So Saturdays were the highlight of my week for two reasons: because it was one of several swim practice days, and because of Ms. Fleming. When I reached her small gray house, I saw that the front door was open a crack. After ringing the doorbell twice and receiving no response, I peeked in. “Hello?” Still nothing. “Ms. Fleming?” I called, stepping into the doorway and feeling the cool blast of the air conditioner. The white-tiled kitchen was empty, and there was no sound but the slow drip, drip, drip from the leaking faucet. From behind me, I suddenly heard a breathless “Oh, Nicole!” I spun around to see Ms. Fleming standing on the doorstep, looking flustered. She was holding down a bright orange hat on top of her head and leaning on her cane, and her normally cheerful expression had been replaced by a confused frown. “Have you seen my wig?” she asked me, still breathing hard. I hadn’t. I’d just gotten here, after all. I didn’t even know Ms. Fleming wore a wig, and I tried to hide my surprise. “No, but I can try to find it.” “Thank you, Nicole.” The distress on her face melted into a smile, dimples showing in her wrinkled features. I opened the front door all the way, and Ms. Fleming and I both stepped inside. I saw a half-eaten bowl of tuna salad on the table. Situations like this no longer surprised me. Ms. Fleming had always been a little scattered, but lately, she seemed more forgetful than usual. She’d been losing a lot of her things. Like two weeks ago, when we’d found her slippers in the microwave. Or some time before that—her toothbrush in the refrigerator next to a bowl of lemon pudding. Finding her stuff sure put the “odd” in “odd jobs.” Not that I minded, though— helping Ms. Fleming was more than just a task that my mom had volunteered me for. Ms. Fleming could be good company, even if she sometimes did forget things. So the wig was gray. I knew that much. And remembering how Ms. Fleming looked ordinarily, I knew it was about shoulder length or shorter. “I