Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists

Triangle Man (marker) by Angelo Theodore, 9; published in the January/February issue of Stone Soup A note from Emma Wood Hello from Cincinnati!    I am thrilled to announce that Lily Jessen’s The Pipe Tree, the fiction winner of our 2022 Book Contest, is now available for preorder. The Pipe Tree, which tells the story of a sparrow who is captured and caged by a lonely woman, is beautiful and moving, yet also formally inventive and playful. It is a gem of a novel that you will read in one sitting. I hope you will support Lily and Stone Soup by ordering it today! It will be released on March 15.  I am also excited to share our latest Stone Soup interview between former Stone Soup contributor Georgia Marshall and Parwana Amiri, a Stone Soup contributor via the Refugee Project. Amiri, 19, recently published a book of poems, We Will Fly Higher, about her experiences living in refugee camps in Lesvos, Greece.  Last but not least! A writing prompt for you all. In the January/February issue of the magazine, we published the very short memoir piece “When I Accidentally Drew an Arc around My Butterfly” by Norah Lu, 7. The title is descriptive of the piece: at school one day, Norah is drawing a butterfly when a classmate bumps into her elbow, pushing her hand across the page and making an arc over the butterfly. Rather than trash the drawing because of the mistake, Norah finds a way to make the mistake into something else—a flower.  This weekend, I challenge you to either write about a time when you turned a mistake into something else, something new and interesting—or to go back to something (a poem, a drawing, a story, a collage, etc) that you feel has a mistake in it, and rather than try to fix that “mistake,” attempt to make it a feature of the piece!  Happy Saturday! Preorder The Pipe Tree From Stone Soup January/February 2024 When I Accidentally Drew an Arc around My Butterfly by Norah Lu, 7 I had just finished sketching a butterfly at my school desk. I grinned and raised my arms over my head, stretching with joy as I looked down at my picture. I had spent fifteen minutes sketching it. I picked up a yellow crayon and started coloring the right wing. Suddenly, Maxine, my friend next to me, bumped me on the elbow. That made an arc around my yellow butterfly picture. Oh, all that work for nothing! But I can’t just start all over again! You have to think of an idea, Norah. I lifted my head and studied my drawing carefully. I thought about places where butterflies land: grass, leaves, flowers . . . wait—flowers? Hmm, that might be useful after all. I said nothing while I colored the rest of my butterfly. But when it was time for the arc I accidentally drew, I smiled a huge smile. First, I drew a circle. (Can you guess what I was doing?) Next, I drew some small half circles. (Can you guess what now?) Then, I drew a stem. (It’s getting obvious.) Finally, I colored it. It was a flower! A pretty, yellow flower! I grinned the biggest grin yet. It was beautiful! To read the March/April issue of Stone Soup, out now, click here. 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.