A note from William
Firstly, congratulations to our Stone Soup editor, Emma Wood! Her most recent book of poems, The Real World, has just been published! Reading Emma's poetry is a great way to get to know her better! In the same spirit that I ask you to support our young authors by buying their book, please support Emma by purchasing The Real World. You can pre-order it now. The book will be shipped to you on its official publication date.
Open House
Our second annual open house is on Tuesday, November 30 at 4 p.m. PST. Clicking on the date will add it to your calendar. This is your opportunity to meet our staff, ask questions, and share with people at the meeting. Everyone is welcome! Last year we had a good mix of students and adults attending. We look forward to seeing you!
Until next time,
Highlights from the past week online
Don't miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at on our blog!
Georgia, 12, wrote a review of Lucy Worsley's novel The Austen Girls, which is this month's featured novel for the Stone Soup Book Club.
Mihika Sarkar Omachi, 12, published a brilliant comic strip about a trip she took to Bali with her family.
From Stone Soup
November 2021
The Mourning Dove
By Meital Friend, 13 (Brooklyn, NY)
There was a mourning dove sitting on our roof. Well, sitting might not be the right word. Most of the time, we say one word because a better word doesn’t exist. For example, if there was a word that meant there is a bomb whistling toward your family and all you can do is wait for the explosion which will ruin your life, then the nurse with purple lipstick would have said it, instead of just “I’m sorry.”
And how do you receive an apology when you can never accept it, even if you pretend you can? Most of the time, people act like apologies are gifts the apologizer is giving to the person they’re apologizing to. But, looking at the shiny purple lips of the nurse, I wondered what to do with her apology. When you have a gift you don’t want, do you still have to write a thank-you note? I guessed you did. So, I just told the nurse, “It’s okay.” I think that was maybe the first lie in an avalanche of lies. Or maybe it wasn’t.
But there was a mourning dove sitting on our roof. And the reason that I wasn’t sure that sitting was the right word, is that it wasn’t moving at all. Usually when people sit, they fidget, or move their head around if they’re a bird. But the mourning dove wasn’t moving at all.
“Why won’t it move?” asked Aunt Jasmine, trying to pretend everything was normal despite the traces of tears on her cheeks that proved the opposite, looking up at the beautiful bird. It really was beautiful, with its gray-brown feathers with smudges of purple, and eyelids a brilliant blue green. But I didn’t want beauty. Or maybe I did.
“Maybe it’s dead,” I said, in a voice that didn’t sound or feel like me. The words didn’t sound or feel like me, either.
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.
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