Stone Soup Magazine
— A seven-year-old in Shanghai receives a pet rabbit as a gift, but after two weeks of joy, the rabbit dies the night before the family must travel.
— A swimmer's race unfolds from nervous anticipation through the explosive start, underwater glide, flip turn, and triumphant finish in lane seven.
— Babe Didrikson Zaharias: The Making of a Champion, by Russell Freedman; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers: Boston, 2014; $10.99 Russell Freedman’s biography, Babe Didrikson Zaharias: The Making of...
— A lonely ranch girl discovers a stray silver cat in the barn, secretly feeds it, and eventually adopts it when the cat needs help giving birth to kittens.
— A young pianist reflects on why she continues despite the tedium of practice, finding meaning in performance, emotional expression, and connecting with elderly audiences.
— A businesswoman at San Francisco airport reluctantly agrees to deliver a mysterious package from a deaf stranger to his daughter in New York.
— Two cousins at a beach house share the same drowning nightmare, then follow a mysterious voice to rescue a seal trapped in a fishing net.
— A child sends love through night sounds and constellations to someone far away, finding connection in shared memories of crickets and stars.
— A young poet imagines her future home painted paradise blue, with wind chimes, forsythia, and wandering aromas creating an oasis among city streets.
— There Will Be Bears, by Ryan Gebhart; Candlewick Press: Somerville, Massachusetts, 2014; $16.99 When I first saw the cover of this book, I wasn’t very interested, so I put it...