An update from book club! Greetings from Book Club! It was a delight to come back together for another book club meeting after the summer vacation. We discussed The Time of Green Magic by Hilary MacKay, an enchanting book in which three step-siblings and their parents move into a mysterious old house in London. At first, the step-siblings are having trouble getting along and getting used to their new family, but as they encounter more and more strange and magical things in the house, they have to work together to help keep each other safe and return a magical creature to his world. We had participants from all over the U.S. this time, and everyone had really enjoyed the book. We started off talking about our favorite aspects of the book, and then we talked about how the relationships between the siblings changed as the book went on. People mentioned that they related to the sibling dynamics in the book: how they fought and were different from each other, but ultimately loved each other. Next we discussed the mysterious minor character of the neighbor Mrs. Puddock, who is revealed about three-quarters of the way through the book to actually be a toad. We went back and looked at the initial descriptions of Mrs. Puddock to hunt for clues that she wasn’t a human, and that she might actually be a toad. Some people thought from the beginning that she wasn’t human, and some of us were surprised–but we were all surprised to hear that she was a toad. We agreed that this secret gave the book more of a feeling of mystery and suspense. Next we talked about the bond between Louis, the youngest sibling, and Iffen, the magical cat who visits him in his bedroom, and gets increasingly huge and dangerous. Some of us mentioned that even though Louis loved Iffen, it was a good thing they returned him to his original habitat, because he was hurting Louis. Other people mentioned that they thought it was a sad, tender, or heartbreaking moment when Iffen got returned, even though they knew that it had to be done. We discussed why we thought Theo, the dad, was unable to see Iffen, and agreed that it was probably because he didn’t believe in magic. Last but not least, it was time for some creative writing of our own! In The Time of Green Magic, Abi starts falling into the worlds of the stories she reads. So, the Book Clubbers had a prompt to write about a character falling into a book. What does the world look like? What happens to the character? They also had a second option to write about a real place they’ve been that felt enchanted, like the house in the book felt enchanted. It was so fun to get to hear what people had written! We had pirate ships, snow falling outside of cozy rooms, and a very athletic boy who secretly loves to read! I’m excited to meet up again next month, on October 29, 2022, when we will be discussing The Front Desk by Kelly Yang. See you then! Our Next Book (to be discussed on October 29): The Front Desk by Kelly Yang
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #41: Beginnings
An update from our forty-first Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, September 17th, plus some of the output published below To kick off the his workshop of the fall term, Conner taught a class on beginnings. We read the beginnings and opening sentences of works such as The Handmaids Tale, Catcher in the Rye, The Metamorphosis, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, The Stranger, and Moby Dick. What we learned from these beginnings is that even though it is often impulse to begin a story with exposition, stories and novels are often much more exciting when they begin in medias res, or in the middle of the action. It was clear that these openings hooked the reader by not revealing everything—a technique known as withholding—and oftentimes by introducing the novel’s “center,” or major themes. These openings set the tone for the rest of the work. Based on these openings, Conner told us that we use our opening sentences/paragraphs to reveal something: the central object/desire/conflict in the first sentence. The Challenge: First, write 6 opening sentences, each in a minute and a half, in which the first sentence must include an image, the second sentence must say something specific but utterly ridiculous, the third sentence must contradict itself, the fourth sentence must use the word “and” at least ten times, the fifth sentence must use the words “yes,” “no,” “and,” and “maybe,” and the sixth sentence should include a metaphor or use an example of synesthesia. Then, in twenty minutes, choose one of your opening sentences and expand it into an opening paragraph. The Participants: Anushka, Emma, Allie, Arjun, Aditi, Savi, Josh, Alice, Madeline, Benedetta, Tate, Samantha, Russell, Sofia, Anna From the Sky Emma Hoff, 10 A shadow loomed over the hills, coming closer and attacking the delicate red roses that danced on the grass — all of a sudden everything shivered, and the sun fell in the sky, landing in a mixture of red, orange, and pink on the ground in front of a small house. Along with the sun landed the graceful cloud — eventually a curious human came out of the dwelling, and, with a tentative hand, touched the sun and was burned — they hurried back inside and never came out. The sun, knowing it was not wanted there, alighted upon yellow wings and flew away, for though the sun seemed like a clumsy and broken down car, it could fly quite beautifully if it wanted to — which it often did not. A little girl with blonde braids and a blue sweater waddled like a duck into the welcoming white cloud, and she was the sky which the cloud missed. She slept inside the warm place for a few days and then explored deeper caverns to take shelter from the rainy season. She found a forest and in that forest was a beautiful melody — and all the birds alighted upon her shoulders. A tree waved at her, and she was delighted. The tree took steps towards her, and she took steps towards it, but they were both rooted to the ground. But then she found another room which caught her interest, leaving the forest in dismay. She stepped onto a cold hard floor which spun and danced until she could do nothing but begin to sing, and other explorers entered and watched her notes slowly appear and fade on the wall. And then, all of a sudden she was outside — eventually snow began to fall, and she waited for the cloud to appear again to give her shelter — but it did not, for it had run away, and all she could do was spread her arms out, waiting for warmth.
Writing Workshop #68: Sense of Place
An update from our sixty-eighth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, September 17, plus some of the output published below In this workshop, we covered the idea of ‘sense of place.’ The students learned that sense of place is a literary device that not only evokes physical, objective descriptions, but also uses vivid imagery to capture the thoughts and feelings of a character about a certain place. We studied numerous example of sense of place within literature and music, including Jack London’s Call of the Wild and an excerpt from Claire Rinterknecht’s story featured in the March 2020 issue of Stone Soup. Students participated in a brief 5 minute write in which half of the class described a place as a neutral narrator and the other half described a place through the lens of a character. Pearl, Greta, Nami, and Peri all shared their incredible work before we moved into our half-hour writing period, during which Peri, Yueling, Pearl, and Ava read. Overall, we had a blast kicking off this fall semester and look forward to more great work yet to come! The Challenge: Describe a place or a setting in which a story will take place. 1) Describe as the omniscient narrator, like the art director for a movie set description including lighting and mood. OR 2) Write from the point-of-view of a character. This is the skeleton vision of the place (lighting, sound, feeling, etc.) as appropriate to your vision. The Participants: Anya, Ava, Celia, Cora, Greta, Nami, Pearl, Peri, Reethi, Sofia, Yueling Arctic Winter Pearl Coogan, 10 Cold howling wind whipped through my fur, blowing endlessly. The deep snow crunched under my paws, stretching as far as my keen blue eyes could see. Snow-covered mounds that were once grey cliffs rose out of the white sea, not a hint of rock visible on them. Farther beyond the once-cliffs were the towering mountains, also covered in snow that was continuously piling higher and higher. The streams that ran and pulled in spring were now completely frozen over with ice. Everything was beautiful. But like many things, the looks of the tundra didn’t say much about the tundra. I couldn’t see or smell any other animals except the six other wolves in my pack, all of them my relatives. The prey, even the caribou, had disappeared like all the other animals, having hidden in their snow-covered burrows or migrated south. To make it even worse, the falling snow prevented me from seeing far. I was an Arctic wolf living in my Arctic habitat with a thick winter coat, but I was still shivering. The snow, though beautiful, covered up all of the hare’s burrows and even rocks that I could fall and hurt myself on. Hunger, as ruthless as ever, gnawed at my stomach. But I had survived one cruel Arctic winter before and could live through another, even if I wasn’t thriving. “Taiga!” My cousin Icicle called, standing on top of one of the snow-mounds, clearly trying to find prey like me and the rest of my pack. But, unlike me and the pack, she wasn’t a good hunter. At all. “Leave her alone, Icicle! She’s a much better hunter than you,” Icicle’s mother and my father’s younger sister Snowclaw growled. Icicle bowed his small head and padded down from the mound he was standing on. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was still young with plenty of room to improve his hunting skills and Snowclaw didn’t seem to like him at all. Smelling a wisp of deeply burried hare, I started digging into the endless sea of snow. The smell grew stronger, more vivid, as I dug. Crackly brown grass started to appear, a hole in the middle of it. Lighting up, I started digging in the hole. Surprised yellow eyes glared at me. The snowshoe hare leaped up and started sprinting away from me, but he was tired from his hibernation and wasn’t use to running in such deep snow. My paws pattered on the ground, barely touching the snow before they lifted up. The howling wind was even louder and stronger as I ran, flurries snaking down faster. Suddenly I wasn’t cold anymore. Suddenly the Arctic winter wasn’t as menacing anymore. My sharp fangs sank into the hare’s neck, sinking deeper and deeper. I knew my teeth, once gleaming white, would be stained with blood for days. But I didn’t care. Once I had thought that in the winter, the tundra was a cruel place. A menacing place. An evil place. But now I knew that it wasn’t so terrible. There was still prey but you had to work to find it. There was still warmth but you had to rely on other wolves for it. There was still water but you had to break through the ice to drink it. After all, why would nature make the tundra so cruel that the only good things about were the looks. Holding my head high, I trotted back to my den with my pack following me. My aunt and uncle had brought down a caribou and my brother had caught a bird, so combined with my hare, there would be plenty of food to go around. Maybe not as much as the bounty of prey in spring, but enough to thrive through the not-so-cruel arctic winter. To Let Go Aditi Nair, 14 And I let go. It happened to be a fall much similar to the ones I’ve seen on T.V, and I was ready–well, sort of ready. The adrenaline came to me like a lightning bolt, but I know that this was the best scenario, if any at all. It felt like the world was racing to greet me on all sides, and everything
