Imagine living in the hot sun, in the poorest town in the Arizona desert—Nowhere. In a town with the lowest graduation rate in the state, you wouldn’t expect much. Nowhere has some strange things—two bars, an ostrich farm, an excessive number of bullies. Still, in all of its dusty glory, Nowhere’s biggest claim to fame is the Dead Frenchman Mine. When the dreaded town terrorizer, Bo, demands that Gus go into the mine and fetch him a piece of gold, Gus is terrified. But his friend’s dirt bike is on the line, and he won’t let her down—at least, until he figures out just how scary the mine can be. I checked this book out half-heartedly, not expecting much. However, my mind was changed as I dove further and further into this captivating, heartfelt story, and realized just how wrong I was to underestimate this book. With relatable characters, a unique plot, and conflict that leaves you empathizing with those who have to endure it, it’s not hard to immediately fall in love with this story. This book especially stood out to me because the characters are so much more than they appear to be. At first, these characters seem like your average middle schoolers, nothing exciting about them. Yet, when disaster strikes, we learn so much about them. From cave-ins to treacherous pits and holes, the characters learn so much about each other. They share a hatred of Nowhere, and a fear of what haunts them from their past. On their journey, they don’t only discover new things about each other, they discover new elements in themselves and the bonds they share with one another. “I’ll be defined by what I do in this life, not by what anyone else does to me or says about me. None of that matters. All that matters is what I do.” That inspiring quote is an example of one of the many lessons demonstrated in the story. 24 Hours in Nowhere teaches us so many things, but one of the most meaningful lessons is to not judge people without fully understanding their stories. When Gus, Rossi, Matthew, and Jesse adventure into the ominous Dead Frenchman Mine, they face challenges, but they also overcome emotional challenges with each other, and the characters are able to lift some weight off their shoulders and express their feelings with each other. The most unlikely group is able to bond through their hardships and similarities in their past and their struggles. “What struggles do I have, and how are they similar to the characters?” was the question I continuously asked myself. 24 Hours in Nowhere lets you sympathize with the characters. It’s an enjoyable book because it lets you reflect on your own life and think about how there are less fortunate people in the world around us. Any fans of Dusti Bowling’s The Canyon’s Edge will enjoy this book because of their similar personal struggles and discoveries. Anyone who enjoys adventure, realistic fiction, and real-world issues will connect to the plot and the characters. Overall, I quite enjoyed reading Dusti Bowling’s mesmerizing novel that is filled with emotion and sprinkled with just the right amount of humor. Not only is this book about survival, but it lets you reflect on your own life and find similarities with the characters. 24 Hours in Nowhere by Dusti Bowling. Union Square Kids, 2020. Buy the book here and help support Stone Soup in the process!
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Weekly Creativity #223 | Flash Contest #48: Start the First Line of Your Story/Poem with a Word Chosen Randomly from the Dictionary
Flip to a random page in the dictionary, pick a word, and start the first line of your story/poem with that word.
Saturday Newsletter: October 1, 2022
Fire Eater (Nikon d3500) by Aaron D’Souza, 9; published in Stone Soup February 2022 A note from Caleb Greetings from Houston! The last time I wrote to you all I was still living in Santa Cruz, California, where Stone Soup got its start. I have since moved to Houston to pursue an MFA in fiction writing and, six months in, I couldn’t be happier with the program. This week I have the pleasure of talking about the blog which, since late summer and since I’ve begun grad school, has slowed down some, though with your help I hope to ramp things up. Simply, we need and want more bloggers. I want to publish all of your Covid related work—poetry, fiction, art, music, anything at all! I recently published a sprawling piece of Covid poetry in six installments, which you can read here, here, here, here, here, and here. Or, if you’re submitting to the blog, I want all of your creative non-fiction, whether in the form of book, movie, album, or game reviews—like Abhi Sukhdial’s comprehensive review on the power of storytelling in video games—or an essay like Anirudh Parthasarathy’s deep dive on the initial alliance between Stalin and Hitler, or a memoir or personal narrative piece like Jacob Chan’s “Flamethrower,” excerpted below. Ideally, I’d be so overrun with submissions from full- or part-time bloggers that I’d be publishing five pieces a week! So, if you’d like to submit your work to the blog, or become a full-time blogger (around two submissions per month), please submit your work via this Submittable link for the Covid blog, and this Submittable link for the regular blog, keeping in mind that we no longer publish fiction or poetry to the regular blog unless as part of the monthly flash contest. Until next time, From the Stone Soup Blog Flamethrower By Jacob Chan, 11 I was almost 11 in the warm windy fall of the year 2019, when my baseball team, the Bulldogs, were playing in the little league semi-finals. But still, I couldn’t help but want to crawl under my bed, where I would be safe. I couldn’t even bear to glance at the opposing pitcher’s deep blue eyes. His fastball was so fast that if you rode on it around a highway, you would get fined for speeding. My team crammed in the dugout before the game started, each of us getting to know one another way more than we wanted to. I swear I smelled vomit on the jersey of one of my teammates. “Listen up, Bulldogs!” My coach Adam began to yell. “It’s the semi-finals—if we don’t win this, each of you owe me five laps around the field!” Everyone groaned. Everyone, with the exception of me, and a few other boys. Not that we wanted to run laps, mind you, but because we were staring at the five-foot-seven kid on top of the mound warming up. He was literally throwing fireballs into the catcher’s rusty old, well-patted, brown mitt, with the glove strings tightly knotted. For a second, I didn’t care about the 10 pound gold trophy sitting on the table behind the dugout that would be handed out to the winner. I just cared about not getting plunked in the face by a 70 mph fastball thrown by the 11-year-old Godzilla. Alright, alright, call me a scaredy cat, but let’s face it—you would be freaking out, too. The tap of Bowen Orberlie, one of my teammates, brought me back to reality. More… 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.
