Cracks and Fissures by Sage Millen, 12 (Vancouver, Canada) Published in Stone Soup December 2020 A note from Jane It’s always a good week when a new issue of Stone Soup comes out, and there is so much great work in the December issue—all 48 pages of it! One of the things I love about the story we are featuring from the December issue this week is its title, “The Serenity of the Simple Inquiry.” It perfectly describes the perspective of the questioner, Miss Lavender. But for the main character, the whole experience is the opposite. The inquiry is far from simple, and she does not feel serene. It is an unanswerable question that makes her feel annoyed and unsettled every time she thinks about it. She doesn’t want to think about it. She even avoids the teacher who asked it. But she can’t help wondering about it. I remember lots of times in my life when I didn’t know—or didn’t want to say—the answer to a question like, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” For some of us, or at certain times, those kinds of simple-on-the-surface but deeply penetrating questions can be really hard to deal with, while the person asking the question doesn’t realize or doesn’t understand why it is so hard for us to answer. Ella’s character says, as she struggles again to find an answer, “I felt like a vacuum cleaner had just sucked up my long-lost teddy bear or something. I was devastated.” That’s a great line, and it makes me laugh, but it also takes me straight to that truly awful feeling of being put on the spot and not knowing what on earth to say. It’s a sign of great writing if you can generate two such conflicting emotions at the same time. Sage Millen’s beautiful photograph makes a lovely partner for this story. The colors and the scene are serene but evoke those same opposing moods. It’s beautiful, and we can see clearly what it is: a landscape from the air. But the more deeply we delve into the image, the more complex it becomes. What are those fields, those straight lines? Are those rivers or dry canyons, and do they link with one another? Is the light and color from sunlight with clouds throwing shadows on the ground, or is night falling? Is it warm or cold? For this weekend’s activity, think about some of the “simple” but difficult questions you have been asked in your life. Have you ever been stuck for an answer, or felt worried that you couldn’t answer? Perhaps you have given one answer and later on changed your mind. Try using that experience as inspiration for a story, or write a personal narrative about it. And as always, send us any writing you are pleased with. We always love to read what you write. Join us on Zoom for the Writing Workshop end-of-year reading! Saturday, December 19, at 9 a.m. PST For our last session of the year, the Stone Soup Writing Workshop is holding a public reading via Zoom. Members of the workshop will be reading some of their favorite writing from the workshops, live. Friends, family members, teachers, and Stone Soup fans are welcome. You shouldn’t miss this event if you can make it—come and hear the amazing work these young authors have been doing in 2020, in their own voices! Book in via Eventbrite to get all the details. It’s free, though donations are always welcome. Until next week, Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Fatehbir, 9, wrote a quiet but powerful poem called “I Express Myself.” How do you express yourself? We published a tutorial from Florence on “How to Draw Anime Art.” Nora, 12, reviewed The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, considered by many to be a classic. Find out why she thinks it’s a book for all ages. “Talk” by Dylan, 5, is a poem that conveys so many different emotions in its few lines. “Although I can’t put out a forest fire, or completely get rid of pollution, or stop ice caps from melting, I can do little things with lots of love,” Elise writes in her story “Pecky’s Bravery Saves the Forest.” Akhil, 11, was pleasantly surprised by Victoria Jamieson’s graphic novel Roller Girl. Read why Akhil enjoyed it in his review. News from the Stone Soup Open House and Annual Drive Open House On Giving Tuesday, December 1, we held our first-ever Stone Soup Open House via Zoom. What a great event and a wonderful group of people! We were joined by Stone Soup authors and artists, their parents, some former contributors, members of our board, and Editor Emerita Gerry Mandel. The Stone Soup team gave updates on all the projects and community building we have been doing this year, and we heard from students and adults about their experiences through the year and their feelings about Stone Soup. It was a warm, friendly, and for us quite overwhelming experience. Thank you so much to everyone who came and made it such a special evening. We will definitely do it again, and look forward to welcoming even more of you next time. Annual Drive One of the purposes of Tuesday’s event was fundraising. We have already received many incredibly generous donations, and one parent has offered a $10,000 50% match. We are heading toward that target: we have received nearly $10,000 so far, which wins us $5,000 of that match. Every single dollar makes a difference to us, and no amount is too small. Just click the “Become a Stone Soup Patron” button below or the “Donate” button at Stonesoup.com. Canon PowerShot SX600 From Stone Soup December 2020 The Serenity of the Simple Inquiry By Ella Yamamura, 11 (Cary, NC) Illustrated by Sage Millen, 12 (Vancouver, Canada) We sat in a circle, everybody facing my second-grade teacher, Ms. Lavender. She handed everyone a slip of paper. “Now everybody,” Ms. Lavender began, “I would like for you to answer the questions that I’ll ask you—you may say them aloud if
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Roller Girl, Reviewed by Akhil, 11
A year ago I signed up for something called Oregon Battle of the Books. I was discussing with my team which book I should read, and they suggested Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson. At first I did not want to read it because I saw how thick the book was, and I thought it was a chapter book, so I did not want to read it, but I took the book home anyways, and I looked at the cover. It looked like it was some tips for girls who roller skate. I wanted to see what the pages looked like, and I was surprised. It was a comic book. I immediately sat on the couch and read the book. The book is about a girl named Astrid. She and her best friend, Nicole, do everything together, but when Astrid signs up for roller skating she thinks Nicole will sign up for it too, but instead Nicole signs up for dance classes. And from there on, there is so much change and struggle for Astrid, because she keeps falling while trying to do roller skating, she got made fun of a lot at camp, and her coach keeps saying negative things about her. Astrid’s dream is that she wants to be like Rainbow Bite, the best roller skater in the roller derby, but Astrid is still the worst on her team. Later on she keeps moving up the ranks from 12 to 9 to 4 because she keeps on practicing and practicing, and competes in the roller derby because she got so much practice. The theme of the book is friendship. Friendship is important, and if you don’t have friendship then you won’t have any fun in your life. I once had a friend that was really shy and barely ever talked to anyone except for the teachers. I saw that he would just sit in the corner every day during recess, so I asked him to come over to us and play, and now he is really popular in school, and he is happy because he had friends with him. I think that the author would want us to see in friendship that you will keep making friends on the way if you keep on trying hard. Another theme that I would say that fits this book is hard working because she had to keep trying to achieve her goal. An example is that she kept going to derby camp and kept failing and was the lowest in her camp, so she practiced hard by roller skating every day, and finally she got the hang of it because she did a lot of hard work. My favorite part in the story is where Astrid goes to derby camp. It is my favorite part in the book because that is where all of the trouble starts. For example she starts falling down a lot on her first try, and she was being made fun of because of that she keeps on struggling, but later on gets better. Read this book called Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson. Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson. Dial Books, 2015. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
Writing Workshop #29: Rhythm, Phrasing, Cadence, & Narrative Arc
An update from our twenty-ninth Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop held on Saturday November 21, plus some of the output published below This week William returned to talk about rhythm, phrasing and cadence in writing, with a focus on the impact of short sentences, and the relationships between music, painting, and writing. We read sections from Song of Hiawatha (Longfellow, 1855) for its rhythm, Moby Dick and A Tale of Two Cities for their defferent versions of extra-long sentences, aloud, thinking about they impact of these stylistic choices on the reader. We listened to some performances of evocative music such as Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (the short sentence of its “Da-da-da-da”) and Rimsky Korsakoff’s “Flight of the Bumblebee,” comparing and contrasting with more lyrical, flowing phrases. The Writing Challenge: Chose one of these three approaches to your piece of writing: – Short first sentence… – Start in the middle with long ranging stances that may be held together with the glue of dashes. Don’t be overly concerned with perfect grammar on this first pass. – Write in short sentences. Entirely or mostly. The Participants: Madeline, Helen, Liam, Keyang, Anna, Lucy, Samantha, Charlotte K, Anya, Jonathan, Tilly, Margaret, Olivia, Angela, Ava, Emma, Maddie, Enni, Ying, Analise, Nova, Rachael, Madeline S, Juniper, Janani, Lucy, Georgia, Elbert, Suman, Lena D, Sophie, Tegan, Peri, Lina K, Charlotte M, Nami. Araliya, 11Sandy Hook, CT The Statue Araliya, 11 I ran as fast as I could. Dashing through the thick brush. The moon followed. I heard loud footsteps behind me. I ran faster. Then I came across an abandoned building. I ran towards the building as a dark figure approached the clearing I had been at before. The dark figure looked around to see where I was. With no luck of finding me, it walked away. Once the dark figure left, I went to look around the abandoned building. I came across a statue of a raven. I looked into the ruby red eyes of the statue as though to be alive. As I walked away, I looked back to see that the raven statue was gone. I look around wondering where it could be because I know that it could not have just come alive and walk away, could it? I ran out of the building terrified. I ran back into the woods just to find the dark figure running towards me. I turn around and I run into the raven statue. I look back to find the dark figure and then it hit me. The dark figure was the raven statue. The dark figure was a shapeshifter. Lena D., 12Coarsegold, CA A Room, My Room Lena D., 12 The floorboards creaked as I entered the hallway. My bedroom door was open a crack, so I pushed my door back as I entered my dark room, the fan looming over me like dozens of eyes. I turned on my lamp which hadn’t been dusted in weeks The photos of my photo collage stared at me as I remembered when I took those photos. Me when I was eleven, with my brother on the day before Easter. A photo of my grandparents’ cat. All of those memories enveloped me like a blanket that secured around me. The sun shined in my eyes as I closed them, wondering what it would be like when I grew up. I leaned against the cold wall against my bedroom and wished that this pandemic would stop. Underneath the photos, there lay a cardboard shelf, which I hadn’t put anything in there in days My desk, which I got when I was ten, had a bunch of stuff on it. Christmas cards for my friends Sketchbooks for me to draw on. A photo frame with pink fabric that had a rainbow embroidered onto it. On the left there lay a turtle lamp, which my grandmother gave to me. On the right, there lay a can of my pens that I hadn’t used that much. Next to my bedside table, there lay a bookcase, which I turned into a dresser. I bought a mirror with my own allowance, and beneath there lay my hairbrush. Dust. Nothing but dust. Clouds came into the distance, pouring sudden raindrops as I looked out my window, listening to music with my headphones plugged into my ears. Not a noise. I took my headphones out of my ears to hear loud birds chirping in the distance as I crawled under the blankets to hear my dog barking, at a package that just arrived. Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA Uncontrollable Peri Gordon, 11 It would only spread. It was huge. It was larger than any other that I’d seen, even on television. It was picking up speed faster than I could bear, faster than anyone could control. It ravaged buildings, which couldn’t control their stillness. It murdered people, who couldn’t control their small size. Orange, red, yellow, who knew? It was all those things that we are not. We are not powerful, or unstoppable, or undefeatable. The fire was still picking up speed. I ran. My friends ran. My family ran. We all ran. We didn’t know where, or why, or how. We were weak. We were tired. The fire was angry, punishing. Why? I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to save anyone. I couldn’t bring my home with me. I hoped to bring my friends with me, my family with me. Because I understood something. The fire wasn’t controllable. But neither were we. Enni Harlan, 14Los Angeles, CA Cunning Enni Harlan, 14 The sea is dark. The sky is darker. The waves are murky. The air is clear. The floor is shaking, this way and that, jerked around like a kite in a storm. I cannot see my feet, and yet I feel them trembling, planted on the moving deck. Waves crash against the scarlet hull–at least I know it was scarlet in daytime. At night, where we stand, the
