Stone Soup Magazine

Story·Connor Gorton, age 13 — A basketball-obsessed eighth grader befriends Arthur, a boy with a disability who's never played basketball, teaching him the game and advocating for him to join the team.

Story·Ennya Papastoitsis, age 11 — A family's ritual of baking chocolate-chip cookies becomes a meditation on memory, tradition, and the passage from childhood tea parties to present-day conversations.

Book Review·Holly Goldberg Sloan, Reviewed by Isabel Folger — Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan; Dial Books for Young Readers: New York, 2013; $16.99 Twelve-year-old Willow Chance, who is fascinated by and knowledgeable about plants and medical conditions,...

Book Review·Sonya Hartnett, Reviewed by Nicole Cooper — The Children of the King, by Sonya Hartnett; Candlewick Press: Somerville, Massachusetts, 2014; $16.99 It is too dangerous to stay in London. The threat of bombs falling overhead is constant,...

Story·Alex Perry, age 9 — A young skier investigating dark puddles in cracked ice falls through and fights to survive, his life flashing before him as he struggles toward the surface.

Story·Molly O'Toole, age 12 — A girl finally gets her turn to be Lucia in her Swedish family's St. Lucia Day celebration, but forgets the words to the traditional song at the crucial moment.

Story·Albert Shu, age 10 — In 1960 China during the Great Leap Forward famine, a hungry boy eats his entire lunch bread on the way to school, remembering his family's lost wealth.

Story·Abigail Johnson, age 12 — After losing their mother in a car accident that leaves five-year-old Marcella unconscious, siblings Ellie and Luke wait anxiously in the hospital until Ellie's handmade poster helps welcome Marcella back...

Story·Natalia Dunyak, age 13 — Three Galactic Soldiers rebel against orders to annihilate the planet Enyo, escaping to broker peace and end an interplanetary war that threatens both civilizations.

Poetry·Katherine Shock, age 12 — Morning light filters through as a girl and her cat share a quiet moment of connection, curling together in the gray-gold dawn.