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100% written and illustrated by kids ages 6-13

September/October 2006


By

Going Home

In the blink of an eye, one chapter of your life changes into another. Someone that you knew since you were a toddler becomes a stranger. A place that you’ve memorized by heart becomes unfamiliar. And you, you’ve changed so much that your childhood best friend wouldn’t recognize you if you appeared right before them. It’s been three years since I’ve felt the North Carolina air around me, three years since I last said goodbye to my closest friends, three years since I left my native home. I expected everything to be the same as I left it. I expected everyone to be who they were back then. Only after my brief visit back home did I finally come to realize that I expected too much. As we drove past the tall, looming trees and the wide, dusty lanes, my parents pointed out all the different things that they remembered. I didn’t remember anything. Only as we entered our old neighborhood did I finally have memories pushing themselves to the front of my mind. Home, I thought, I’m finally back home. Familiar houses passed us by, well-known paths and gardens seemed to welcome us back warmly. Yet, something had changed. I just didn’t know what. All my friends welcomed me back with friendly smiles and familiar words All the adults gushed about the changes in my appearance, notably my height. All my friends, who were all grown up themselves, welcomed me back with friendly smiles and familiar words. They filled me in on all the things that I’ve missed out on and on all the changes of our community. They all seemed like strangers to me, it seemed like I was meeting them for the first time. But as the days passed, their facades disappeared, and they became, once again, the people that I knew so well. The people who I could tell my innermost secrets to, and the people who I shared all my childhood memories with. My love and care towards them returned and our friendships were revived. One night, we were all crowded around the television screen, watching the intensity of the basketball game on television. Our home team, which we all loved deeply, against some unknown college. We cheered as victories were made and groaned as the other team gained points. We were all on the edges of our seat as the final minutes of the game came upon us. When we won only by a narrow margin, we exploded, cheering like mad. Only then did memories of our past come swimming back at me. They all told me that Texas had changed me, that I was an entirely different person. My love for pop music slowly gave way to the fun country songs. Healthy East Coast dishes gave way to fried foods and steak. My hair grew out, I adored shopping malls and makeup, my clothing style became unknown to them. But at the end of the week, they too realized, that deep down inside, I was still that little girl who cherished her stuffed animals and saved every blemished photograph in her memory box. On my last day in North Carolina, I sat down on the little bed and thought. I thought about how much everyone had changed, about how much I, myself had changed. I had made plenty of new friends, and I wouldn’t give up my new Texas home for anything. I had eventually moved on and became a different person. But then, as I waved goodbye to all the people that I loved, a little voice inside my head reminded me that, only here is where my heart truly belongs. Only here is home. Note: This story is a sequel to “Moving On,” which appeared in the January/February 2005 issue of Stone Soup. Caroline Lu, 13Friendswood, Texas Olga-Teodora Todorova, 12Plovdiv, Bulgaria


By

Voices of War

Voices of War edited by Tom Wiener; National Geographic: Washington D.C., 2oo4; $3o Don’t get scared away by the title or how many pages in this book. It is really the Voices of Heroes. Veterans who served in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf talk about what happened to them in the wars. It’s like sitting down with someone’s grandfather or uncle or brother and hearing them tell stories that you will never learn about anywhere else. On page 127, Ben Snyder remembers on December 7, 1944 that it had been three years since he heard the horrible news of the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan. He was in the South Pacific still fighting the Japanese and he didn’t know when he would ever go home. When I read that, I remembered the attacks on September 11, 2001, and we are still trying to stop the terrorists. An army nurse, Isabelle Cedar Cook, wrote, “I keep thinking about the children that will soon only know World War II as a chapter in the history books. I wanted very much to share my experiences with them, so I decided to write a book. I called it In Times of War because in times of war things are very different.” One man told about how his brother had been killed. His mother thought the army would fly him home immediately. “Unfortunately, she believed the nonsense the government put in the newspapers during the war for civilian consumption, such as flying soldiers home when tragedy struck a family,” wrote the soldier, William Whiting. He was in the Army’s 802nd Field Artillery Battalion. When he saw dead German soldiers he wrote that “even though they were .the enemy, once they were dead you could no longer hate them. You could not help but remember they were or had been someone’s son, husband, father, brother.” That’s what this book is about. How the war is for regular people like nurses, soldiers and sailors. That’s why you should read this book. So you can see how Americans coped with war. I feel like a walking version of Voices of War I am involved in the Stories of Service Veterans History Project. I am a youth producer. I videotape interviews of veterans for the Library of Congress. Then the veterans’ interviews will be preserved for future generations. These interviews will give information for speech writers, college students and book writers. Each veteran that I interview becomes part of me. I am hearing firsthand accounts of what happened to these men and women. Every one of them has a great story and lesson to pass on. One thing I hear the veterans say is that they want peace. These people know what war is and they want peace in the world. At DePortola Middle School, where I am a seventh-grader, war is not something students think about, but this book would be a very good book to have. It can be used to write history essays and learn about how soldiers and sailors lived and felt then and how they think about the wars now, which is thirty or forty or sixty years later. In history we learn about the generals and presidents and the famous battles. This book tells the real story of the people who fought the wars that became history. Celia Arguilez Smith,12San Diego, California


By

Makoto, the Turtle Boy

There was once a boy who lived in a village in a valley of Japan. His village had wooden houses with sliding doors and rushing water and creeks. One hot summer day, it rained heavily from dawn to dusk. The creeks got deeper and wilder, and the boy, Makoto, thought it was the perfect time to venture down to the creek and hop from rock to rock. Makoto loved to watch the water, to feel it gushing over his hands. He put on a finely-woven straw hat and his blue shoes. Makoto’s mother was fixing lunch, and she told him to be back in half an hour so he could eat with his father when he came home from his job at the post office. Makoto told his mother that he would be back by then. Stretching his socks up to his knees so he would not get mosquito bites, Makoto started down the road. Not many others were on the road at the time, but Makoto did not mind. He liked to be by himself, to breathe in the fresh, thick air, to wade in the creek, to trek amongst the large green trees of the valley School had just ended, and Makoto went out every day to see something new, or to visit old special places. School had just ended, and Makoto went out every day to see something new Makoto headed down the road, and stopped at the post office to say hello to his dad. Makoto reached into his pocket and took out a few pumpkin seeds. He handed them to his dad over the counter where he worked, selling people stamps or arranging for their letters and packages to be mailed. Makoto pressed the seeds into his father’s hand and his father smiled and thanked him. “Where are you off to today?” he asked Makoto. “The creek,” Makoto told him. Then, in a hurry to get there, Makoto waved to his father and ran down the rest of the road. Makoto walked past the giant bamboo stalks and he stepped carefully down to the creek. He hopped from rock to rock, and then stopped to listen to the loud, rushing water. He looked to his right, where two waterfalls stood. They had been there for hundreds of years. He hopped onto three more rocks, slipping on the last one, which was wet and slippery. He fell on it and scraped his knee, and as he scrambled up on the opposite bank, his shoe was pulled from his foot and swept down the river. Makoto ran down the riverbank as fast as he could. He caught up with his shoe, but then it floated away from him and under the bridge. There was no bank for him to run on and no rocks to hop on. He waded into the creek, then swam through the creek and under the bridge. His shoe had caught in between two rocks. He swam closer to it, but was soon swept off to the side. Makoto was tired from swimming and his limbs were sore. He pulled himself up onto the bank, and lay down on his side. He was wearing only one shoe. He turned to lie down on his back on the muddy bank. He sat for a long while, just thinking and sitting still. Then he remembered that he had been asked to be home to eat lunch with his father. His shoe was no longer in sight and Makoto was so tired that he couldn’t bring himself to swim through the rushing water and the sharp rocks. He decided that he would sit on the bank until a villager noticed him. But if he didn’t arrive home soon, his parents would be worried. Makoto was just falling asleep when he heard an ancient voice whisper into his ear. “I will take you back, and look! I found your shoe.” Makoto opened one eye and then two. A turtle was standing in the mud next to him. On the turtle’s back was his shoe! Makoto thanked him gratefully and put his shoe back onto his foot. The turtle waded into the water. “Climb onto my back,” he said. Makoto sat down on the turtle’s back and he leaned forward and held on tight to the turtle’s beautiful shell. Then the turtle swam swiftly into the water. Makoto held his breath, but the turtle assured him that he didn’t need to. Makoto breathed in, and water came out his nose. “I wasn’t ever able to breathe water before!” he told the turtle. The turtle smiled wisely and said to Makoto, “Did you ever try?” Makoto had not. The turtle said to him, “Makoto, you have always been one of us” The turtle said to him, “Makoto, you have always been one of us. You are really a human body and mind, but your spirit and soul are turtle. Once every seven years we give one newborn child the ability. The child can breathe and swim like us. When you fell into the creek when you were young, all the turtles of the creek circled around you to cast the spell. Your mother came and took you out of the water just after you had become part turtle.” Makoto was amazed with the turtle’s tale, and he believed it. He even found himself about to check if there was a shell on his back, but he remembered that his appearance was human. He began to get used to breathing water, and soon they had swum under the bridge. The turtle paddled in between rocks, and then up the bank. Makoto turned to say goodbye and thank you to the turtle. But the turtle had swum back into the creek. Makoto crossed the creek on the rocks once again, and he held on with his hands so that he didn’t slip. He hurried up to the road and ran toward his house. His slid open the door and took