Idan Nutkevitz, 11 I was sitting on my soft bed, and was finishing up with my online classes. I preferred to work on my bed. It was a lot more comfy than a chair anyway. I was in 5th grade and I’d be going to middle school in several months. It was a warm late May day and I had just finished my class when my mom opened my creaky door and slowly shuffled into my room. “Idan, are you done with your classes?” my mother asked. “Yep,” I replied. “I just wanted to let you know that I got an email from the camp and-” But I already knew what she was going to say. Coronavirus ended a lot of things. Certain means of transportation, restaurants, and stores had all been victims of this deadly virus. After a while though, I became used to it. Every so often I would hear that something else closed due to the virus. I’d hear snatches of New York 1 saying things like, “Restaurants have been notified that they have to close due to the ongoing pandemic.” One example that had a bit of an effect on me was my school closing.I was slightly downhearted when my mom said, “Idan, I just read that in person school is cancelled for the rest of the school year.” But similar to how I reacted to the other things closing, I shrugged it off and tried my best to keep unperturbed. But there was still one thing, one thing that had not closed that I kept wishing would not. This was my sleepaway camp, Peconic Dunes. Let me tell you a bit about Peconic Dunes. It was a sleepaway camp that I had been going to for the past 3 years. It was one of my favorite places to be in the world. There is a huge green field, a private section of beach (on the Long Island Sound), a big pond, and a forest with wooden cabins where we slept and hung out. There were many activities you could do as well such as kayaking, some cool sports like ultimate frisbee, walking in the forest, and fishing. There is also something called corkeling. Corkeling is pretty much kayaking but in a circular tube which is very easy to fall out of. Oh and did I mention eating? Eating is always an enjoyable activity. Anyway, for the past year I had been really looking forward to going back there. The previous month we had gotten an email from the director of the camp. He told us that they would put it on hold until the following month to decide whether they would stay open or not. I am a very optimistic person so of course I was hoping that they would stay open. The only problem was that I didn’t really prepare myself for that obstacle. I should’ve told myself that there was a good chance that it would happen. I should’ve told myself to look forward to the next time I’ll go. I should’ve told myself that it’ll be for a reason if they do close. However, I was optimistic the whole way through and I didn’t end up doing any of these things. I kept telling myself and my parents that it would stay open because things would get better. I also tried to think about how overjoyed I’ll feel when I get there. “- the camp had to cancel.” she said. There was an empathetic look in her eyes. It took me a few seconds to process what she just told me. Deep down, I knew it would happen, but it was a blow nevertheless. I didn’t utter a word and I kept hearing her words over and over again in my head. I slumped onto my pillow, and began to cry with wet tears trickling down my face. My mother sat down on my bed next to me and tried to make me feel better. She consoled me. She told me that I would go the next time I had the chance. But all I could think about was Peconic Dunes. I thought about all the people I wouldn’t be able to see. I thought about all the activities I wouldn’t be able to do. Peconic Dunes was the onlything in my head. After a couple minutes I got up and every step I took felt heavy and I began to trudge along the floor. Then at that moment, I began to vocalize my thoughts. “Why did they have to close!” I exclaimed. “How can they predict how the virus will be in a month! What if things get better by then!” I tried to think about every reason why they should’ve stayed open. But my list of reasons was not very lengthy. “Idan, you know that they had to close for a reason. They would never close just like that if they didn’t have a reason behind it. They did it for the right choices.” Even though I knew she was right, I was still very crestfallen. Over the next few days, it still felt like a heavy weight on my chest. One night I just couldn’t contain my feelings and I began to cry again. I wasn’t very pleased at the time as one could probably tell. It was one of the worst feelings I had ever felt in a while. I couldn’t be cheerful because my thoughts would always drift back towards Peconic Dunes. Those were some very miserable days. And everyday I kept trying to make things better. But it was tough, really tough. When I finally began to calm down again, I tried to think about good things. For example the fact that just because I couldn’t go this time doesn’t mean I won’t ever venture there again. I told myself that next year would be better and that if it’s safe, I would go back to camp just like any other year. It was still
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Like the Willow Tree, Reviewed by Nora, 13
Like the Willow Tree by Newbery award-winning author Lois Lowry is set in 1918, in the midst of the Spanish Flu epidemic. It follows Lydia Amelia Pierce, an eleven-year-old girl living in Portland, Maine. The Spanish Influenza epidemic was, in some ways, similar to the worldwide pandemic in which we are now living. People were dying, and it seemed as though the world would never be the same again. The epidemic began in February, 1918, and was not at its close until April, 1920, exactly one hundred years before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the earth. Although there were some similarities between the effects of the Coronavirus, and the Spanish Flu, there were also many differences. For example, one hundred years ago, the medical field was significantly smaller than it is now, and the nurses and doctors had less to go on in their search for a cure. There was no CNN or ABC news that told people the latest news about the pandemic. There were newspapers, of course, but still, people were less informed about what was going on in the rest of the country. Like the Willow Tree was originally published as part of the Dear America series, a series about children growing up in important times in American history, such as the Spanish Influenza. The books are written in the form of journal entries, instead of regular prose. You can see the slowly rising effect of the illness through her entries, starting with her not being able to go to the movie theater for her birthday, to the devastating entry telling that she is orphaned, and the only family she has left is her elder brother, Danial. Lydia’s uncle takes Lydia and Danial in, but he has a family of his own, and he can’t care for them for long. So Lydia and Danial, are sent to the Society of Shakers at SabbathDay Lake. The Shakers are a religious group of people, with strict beliefs, and ways of life. At first, Lydia hates them. She misses her family, and her old life, and she dislikes some of the Shaker’s ways. The Shakers won’t allow her to talk to Danial, her only living family, because they believe that the girls and the boys should be kept separate. Lydia worries for Daniel, he seems unhappy, and she is worried that he will try and run away, to join the army, as he once talked of doing. Lydia has trials and hardships throughout her months of life at the shaker village, but she slowly learns to love their way of life, the last few sentences of her final journal entry, written after Easter Sunday supper as Sabbathday Lake, reads: “I took it all in, thinking of everything that had brought me here—the sadness, the losses, the fear, the loneliness, and even the things that had left me shaking with anger. All of that was part of me, the me I had once been. But most of me now was at peace.” I enjoyed Like the Willow Tree as a book, of course, but it was especially intriguing because the main character was experiencing the same, once-in-a-lifetime thing as I was right then. The Spanish Flu pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic are very different, but during both, people had to isolate themselves while scientists searched madly for a cure. At one point, Lydia says that “the world will never be the same again,” and although the world was different from the Influenza, people lived lives without having to worry about contracting it wherever they went. This can be something hopeful to think about right now, as we creep closer to the end of the COVID pandemic, and farther away from the beginning. As I said, Like the Willow Tree was first published as part of the Dear America series, but in September, 2020, author Lois Lowry had the book republished with a new introduction written by the author. I would recommend Like the Willow Tree to anyone about 8 and up. There are some themes of death, given the setting, but overall, it was a wonderful read, and gave a good view of life during the Spanish Flu pandemic, and the Shaker community at SabbathDay Lake. Like the Willow Tree by Lois Lowry. Scholastic, 2020. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
Web Wars, a comic by Janani
To read “Web Wars Part II,” click here!
