Stone Soup Magazine
— A star running back plays through concussion symptoms with a cracked helmet in the championship game, scores the winning touchdown, but may never play football again.
— Matched, by Ally Condie; Speak (an imprint of Penguin Books): New York, 2011; $9.99 Part of leading your own, individual life is choosing whom you love and where you work....
— At summer camp, a girl lies about her grandmother's earrings to avoid teasing, loses them, and discovers her new friend stole them out of misguided kindness.
— 18 Things, by Jamie Ayres; Curiosity Quills Press: Reston, Virginia, 2012; $14.99 Jamie Ayres has written an inspiring story about overcoming grief. In 18 Things, teenager Olga Gay Worontzoff suffers...
— A bearded dragon observes its reflection in terrarium glass, mistaking it for another lizard until the heat lamp clicks off and the illusion vanishes.
— An adopted Korean girl visits her birth village on Easter, confronting the life she might have lived before choosing the family who raised her.
— Night transforms a mountain landscape into a cosmic performance where moon, wind, trees, and lake become musicians preparing for the stars' appearance.
— Two girls repeatedly almost meet through various near-misses, until the narrator reveals their friendship would have diminished them both, making timing's failures a blessing.
— A meditation on wordless connection between living beings — running with dogs, dancing, holding babies — and how we lose this silent language as we grow older.
— A teenage graffiti artist creates stunning murals on abandoned buildings while evading police, forming an unlikely friendship with a politician's daughter who discovers his work.