Sofia Bernardo, 13 I was scared and confused: school was cancelled because of a virus and it felt like all my hard work was going down the drain. In March 2020, I was in science class at school working with my small group on a climate change friendly building design for our school’s open house, which was scheduled to take place the following week. Just when our project was about ready to show at the open house, we had to suddenly go home and shelter in place. We never got to finish that project. It was a really hard day. I want vaccines for children to be tested and approved so we can get back to school and see friends and family. It’s been clear that the best memories don’t happen via zoom or apart, they happen when we are together. It makes us realize we take our schooling, friends and our family’s presence for granted. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of this pandemic. Although I like spending time by myself sometimes, I miss my friends. The presence of another human body near me. I miss sleepovers, playdates, parties, celebrating the birth of a new cousin and weddings. I hope for a day when we can all go back to school, and I can actually meet my teachers in person, walk to my classrooms and sit down and be able to work on a project with a partner and feel safe. I’m proud of those who’ve done their part in the Pandemic, including social distancing, wearing masks, staying home if they feel sick and being really flexible in a tough year. I am grateful for the essential workers and first responders. My cousin worked as an ICU nurse with Covid patients early in the pandemic. She and her friends are real heroes. In a way participating in the clinical trial is identical to a Random Act of Kindness. Because in a Random Acts of Kindness the small acts alone aren’t a big deal, but when you share them and inspire others to join you they can make a big impact on the world. This is similar to being a clinical trial participant, because in the trials they need over 3,000 kids. You can put a label on which age group data is more important, but at the end of the day, it’s each individual person in the study that is valuable, because they actually make a difference contributing to our world, whether they are 11 or 40. I want to do my part to help end the Pandemic by participating in a clinical trial for a covid vaccine – that’s my Random Act of Kindness. My Experience in the Clinic Ironically, in our science class we are learning about the science behind the mRNA vaccines. I am very fortunate to know the science of what is being injected into my body. And it’s very fascinating to me how the cells react, specifically to the vaccine. The mRNA protein directs cells to produce the virus spike protein, provoking an immune response to that unknown protein. The body has to get used to this spike protein in order to know what to do if it encounters it in the future. My parents found out about the trial and asked me if I wanted to participate. They gave me the choice, and I said, yes! The first visit was long – it was over four hours. They asked me lots of questions, took blood samples and ran other medical tests. After the first shot my arm got sore after the first three hours and it swelled up about 2cm. My arm felt like it was dead by night time, but it wasn’t so painful that I needed Tylenol. There were surveys I had to fill out every day for data collection —the injection site, temperature and general health. After a few days my arm felt perfectly normal and I could exercise and have fun again. The second visit was exciting and scary. Scary because I heard that people got more side effects after the second shot. I answered lots of questions, underwent a few tests and received another shot. I had the same very sore arm and a low grade 99.5 fever later that night. I took two naps the next day. I felt back to normal after just a few days and could move my arm around. I’m looking forward to spending time with my grandma and seeing my friends. Honestly, I’m glad that I did it. It feels good to contribute to science and to humanity. All the kids in this study did one big random act of kindness—taking a personal risk to help others. I’m glad to be a part of ending the pandemic. There are about one billion adolescents on the planet according to UNICEF. I hope by participating in the trial that kids like me will be able to see their grandparents and friends again and go to school safely.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Writing Workshop #44: Dystopian Fiction
An update from our forty-fourth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday June 12, plus some of the output published below This week, since William is on vacation, we had two special guests leading the workshop. Maddie, who is a part of William’s workshop, and Liam, who now attends Conner’s workshop, led the workshop on the topic of dystopian stories. The two young writers delved into a thorough definition of Dystopian Fiction, plus several recent popular examples of the genre. Many people reading contemporary fiction are likely familiar with this genre, as high-profile series like The Hunger Games and Divergent are bestselling examples. Maddie and Liam went through several examples, and challenged the writers present at this workshop to create their own story in the same vein. The Challenge: Write a story set in a dystopian world or modify an existing story of yours to include dystopian elements. The Participants: Sage, Chelsea, Lena A, Madeline, Helen, Margaret, Peri, Julia, Pranjoli, Nami, Angela, Jonathan, Audrey, Gia, Jaya, Peter, Sierra, Arishka, Grace, Tilly, Mahika, Mia, Iago, Charlotte, Rachael, Lina. Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA Picture Day Peri Gordon, 11 “I don’t think you understand,” sighed the principal. “If a child misses Picture Day, there will be no makeup date. And Picture Day is not optional.” The principal shook his head at the parent’s ignorance, although he knew that there was no way that she could be better informed. He himself did not know exactly why Picture Day was so essential, but he knew that it must happen every year and could only happen on one day of the year. The mother protested. “If I drive Robbie to Picture Day, then neither of us will be home to take care of his little sister, and the daycare is not open on Picture Day, as you know.” “That’s alright, the little girl can come along, too,” the principal said. “The younger a child gets their first picture taken, the better.” His own words intrigued and somewhat confused him, but that was alright; he was not in the government, so he had no right to know why these things were, just to know these things. The principal could tell that the little girl, lingering behind her mother’s back with the slightly older boy, was not yet in school. But her picture would be taken nevertheless. *** On Picture Day, the brother and sister, Robbie and Sophie, after some protest, put on their finest clothing for their pictures and headed off to the Picture Dome, a black building with a curved roof that let in no sunlight, which would interfere with the process. Instead, the cool building was awash with electric light. Sophie, new to Picture Day, bit her fingernails, ruining the fancy, polished look they had been forced to take on for this day. The girl declared, “I’m nervous.” Her mother scolded her, pulling Sophie’s nails out of her mouth and hissing, “There is no time for nervousness.” But the woman herself was wondering why Sophie’s picture should be taken already. Not many people knew the answer to the woman’s question. But the president, huddled in the corner with his fellow government members, knew everything. He watched as a fellow leader of his, slightly less important but still in the know, used the machine everyone thought was a camera to scan each child’s mind. Of course, it served as a camera, too, so that people would see the pictures and suspect nothing. But the school’s yearbook was a frivolous thing, a distraction. The president himself had not invented mind scanning, but he had figured out why and how it must be used. Each child’s intellectual ability affected how they must be taught to interact with others and how others must be taught to interact with them. It was all carefully planned by top scientists and politicians, so that no one would know of the well-off government members’ secret. As long as the citizens were not in charge, the president would feel pleasure. As long as the people did not control a thing, the government would control everything. And when, in a few weeks, they performed the experiment the government had planned for centuries—the one involving cloning and killing off the original, cloning the clone and killing off the original, so that scientists could make huge advancements—no one would even be aware until it happened. It was all for the best. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Memories in Ruins Lina Kim, 11 I pushed the charred curtain out of the way as I stepped outside. The ground was blackened with the ash of everything that was destroyed. Bones littered the ground. Smoke filled the air. My parents and I were one of the only few lucky families. We had somehow survived. I scanned the barren wasteland for a sign. Maybe there was someone alive out there, stumbling through the rubble for shelter. I went about my usual route. I went sixty steps forward, then went to the right thirty steps. I turned right again and went sixty steps. I repeated that until I got back to where I started. I kept searching along the way. I never allowed myself to go even an inch more than sixty steps away from my home. It was the same thing every day. As mom and dad scoured the earth for food, I looked for people to help. It had only been two weeks since the attack, but I had already fallen into a routine. That took up the entire morning. After that, I would go inside the small hut. It had been hastily rebuilt, but was only a very small fraction of the house it once was. It only had two rooms. I would help my parents serve lunch and we would eat. Halfway through the meal, my parents would go to find more food and search for people twice as far away from the house as I would in the morning. I was supposed to
Writing Workshop #43: Alliteration (revisited) & Assonance
An update from our forty-third Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday June 5, plus some of the output published below In this workshop, William took one of his earliest writing workshop topics—alliteration—and reworked it, adding more for the writers of the group to think about. In addition to alliteration, William also reviewed the technique of assonance, which occurs when the sounds in the middle of words repeat themselves. The class went over examples of alliteration and assonance, including from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The Challenge: Either find a piece of prose that you’ve already written, and add alliteration OR start something fresh using the techniques of alliteration. The Participants: Sage, Reese, Chelsea, Lena A, Delight, Madeline, Helen, Margaret, Hanbei, Peri, Julia, Pranjoli, Nami, Angela, Jonathan, Audrey, Gia, Jaya, Peter, Sierra, Arishka, Grace, Tilly, Mahika, Mia, Iago, Charlotte, Rachael, Lina. Nami Gajcowski, 11Seattle, WA The Soul in the Clouds Nami Gajcowski, 11 I clutched a soft avocado in my hand and squished it slightly. It had just the right firmness and it would be fantastic in guacamole. I heard a sharp yelp, so I spun around to see a toddler with a desperate scream. I covered my ears before dropping the avocado into my shopping cart. Then, I pushed my items away from the toddler and found myself in the kids’ section. I was in the midst of stuffed zebras and gazelles with the faint buzzing sound of the child’s scream, somewhere near the produce section. I grabbed a plush zebra before dropping it into my shopping cart. I had no use for a zebra, but it would be my only memory of before. It would be the thing that held me onto terrifying, but true, reality. Tens of thousands of people went through this. But they had forgotten. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe it was tucked away deep inside their soul, no matter how much they tried to forget about it. No one had mentioned the seemingly perfectly nice people who brought everyone down with a betrayal. No one mentioned how many people were lost in the terrible escape. No one remembered that I was ten and was still clutching a stuffed zebra as the world fell at my feet and then turned into chaos. Or maybe it was forgiven and forgotten. But how could we forgive them? How could life go on as normal, with stores still selling pungent yet petrifying fruit that might’ve contained poison after the betrayal? How could they dare to do that? There was danger in this society. Hints of a downfall appeared here and there. Shocking incidents had confirmed that. But there were no rumors. No nothing. Any hint of what happened after the betrayal that happened now was not noticed or forgotten. Everything around me began swimming in my tear-filled eyes. I was no longer in the clutch of reality. I was floating… floating somewhere far and safe. Floating. Floating out of this world where people forgot about the horrors and tried – but would fail – to rebuild a new society and confirm that everything was okay. But nothing would be okay. Nothing. I could no longer see the grocery store. I was spinning in bright colors, clutching the zebra. Clutching the only thing that had tried and failed to bring me down to the ground. Even though I hated pretending everything was normal even though it wasn’t, I couldn’t go up into the air. I had to stay on the ground. Frantically groping around for something to hold on to was impossible. There was nothing to hold on to. My emotions began to conflict. Calm, terrified. Calm, terrified. Like the never-ending tidal wave that the moon brought. Like the days before the betrayal… like the calmness. But how could I give in to the sensation? I had to. It was the only way to survive. Visions of my life swirled around me. Of before. Of before the terrors. The zebra stuffy that I had– named Ellie – that I used to snuggle with every night. Of my old best friend. Of everything that had happened before. No. I needed to grab on to reality. I pondered shutting my eyes, hoping to block out the visions, but that would only take me farther away from the ground. I needed an anchor. I had no anchor. I had no someone who could be my anchor. I was floating. Floating. I would disappear soon. Off of the face of the earth. Up into the hands of the sky. No. No. No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t become a wisp of smoke – helpless against the world. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. But I was. I was no longer a person. I was a ghost. With trailing wisps of smoke. I was nothing. I was gone. My soul floated through the clouds. I tried to reach out for it, but it drifted out into the sun. I wasn’t dead. But I wasn’t living. I am an immortal body with no soul – an immortal body in the clouds. My soul continued to drift into the clouds. Soon it was gone. It had entered the sun. It was gone. Forever. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Sacrifice of the Sea Lina Kim, 11 Swimming seals sing songs of sacrifice, sending a seahorse to the seafloor. Tiny turtles turn and circle the swimming seahorse. Corals coo the carols of calmness, letting the little seahorse softly fall asleep. The shark swims by, stealing shells from the seafloor, and swims past the sleeping seahorse. The shark sweeps up the seahorse, swooping away to snack on the sleeping seahorse. The creatures are safe for another day. Pranjoli Sadhukha, 11, Newark, OH The Ocean Oasis Pranjoli Sadhukha, 11 The water teemed with wild things. The turtle’s whimsical thoughts were in tune with the sparkling, smiling sun and the beautiful blue-green bliss enveloping his shell. Eventually, he swam to the surface and paused his pondering, letting himself simply enjoy the
