Create a short memoir about an event in your life. Only, instead of using just words, add illustrations to tell the story. In other words, make it a graphic novel memoir.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: November 21, 2020
“Squash Fest” by Taeyi Kim, 11 (Seoul, South Korea) Published in Stone Soup November 2020 A note from Emma How are you all doing? I have to admit that I am burnt out. I am tired of teaching my students over Zoom, tired of staying six feet away from others, tired of doing everything alone. 2020 has worn me down! I am hopeful that the news of a vaccine is accurate and that we will be able to resume something closer to our pre-pandemic lives soon. Lucy Hurwitz’s short poem in the November issue really captures how I have been feeling most mornings. It reads: Wrong side I wake up on that side of bed. My leg’s my arm, My arm’s my head. I love how Lucy takes a common idiom—”I woke up on the wrong side of the bed!”—and pushes it farther. It’s not just that the speaker woke up “on that side of bed” (the missing “the” is perfectly disorienting) but that she is somehow “wrong” herself: “My leg’s my arm, / My arm’s my head.” At the same time as it perfectly captures this feeling of waking up “off,” it’s also funny! This weekend, I challenge you to write a short poem like Lucy’s that is inspired by an everyday idiom. Here are a few you might consider using: It takes two to tango Let’s go back to the drawing board That’s the last straw I’m pulling your leg I’m bent of shape Time is money Her head is in the clouds And, since this is the last note we’ll write you before the holiday, I hope you all have a happy, delicious, safe Thanksgiving holiday! 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! Mahati writes a lyrical farewell to summer, with tons of sensory details. Jessie, 8, reviews Out of My Mind by Shannon M. Draper (which we’ve published reviews of before and also was a Book Club pick!). Read about why Jessie recommends it. Check out the update from our 28th Writing Workshop, which was all about word choice. Pragnya, one of our new Book Reviewers, has another one for us! This time, she reviewed When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, which she says has a “perfect balance between reality and fiction.” Olivia, 10, reviewed The Doughnut King by Jessie Janowitz. She starts the review with this compelling line: “Warning: Once you open The Doughnut King, you’ll be stuck in the story for eternity.” Did you hear who won the Nobel Prizes this year? Mahati gives us a helpful roundup of the winners on the blog, plus some background on the award itself. Lucy Hurwitz, 10Newton, MA From Stone Soup November 2020 Wrong Side By Lucy Hurwitz, 10 (Newton, MA) I wake up on that side of bed. My leg’s my arm, My arm’s my head. . . . /MORE from the November issue 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. Stone Soup’s Advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
Autumn is here and so are the Nobel Prizes!
If you are living in the northern hemisphere, autumn is a time for enjoying all kinds of colorful fall activities such as leaf peeping, apple picking, pumpkin carving, shopping endlessly for the perfect Halloween costume, trick or treating and rounding off October with a sugar rush or even tummy ache! While many of us are exploring autumn in its full glory, scientists, physicians, writers, economists and humanitarians around the world are patiently waiting for the biggest announcement of the year – the Nobel Prize. Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor and philanthropist who gave away a lot of his money to charity. He invented the dynamite and smokeless gun powder among many other things. Using his invention, explosives of all kinds were being manufactured all over the world. This way, he became very rich. He was worried about what people would think of him because of how he made his fortune. He had no wife or children to give his fortune to. So, before died in 1896, he made a will and donated all his fortune to a prize fund named after him. The Nobel prize was set up to recognize curiosity, creativity, courage and outstanding achievements that brought the greatest benefit to humankind. The winners are called Nobel Laureates. It is given in five categories: Medicine, Chemistry, Physics, Literature and Peace. A 6th prize for economics was added to the list in 1969. Every year, each Nobel Prize is announced on different dates. These dates fall in the second week of October. The prizes are awarded in December. The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway. All other prizes are awarded at a banquet in Stockholm, Sweden. Each category can be won by up to three people. Only the Peace Prize can be awarded to an organization. Each winner gets a unique gold medal, a hand-crafted diploma and a large sum of money. This year’s Laureates are: ● Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for the Chemistry Prize. These two female chemists are recognized for the discovery of “genetic scissors” that can edit genes and help cure inherited diseases! ● The Literature Prize is awarded to American female poet Louise Glück. Her writing is recognized for being sharp and able to draw in people who don’t usually read poems. ● The Medicine Prize goes to three researchers – Charles M. Rice, Harvey J. Alter, and Michael Houghton, for the discovery of the virus Hepatitis C. Sometimes, sick people might need to get blood transferred to them from others donors. Before this amazing discovery, there was a high risk of getting contaminated blood due to the virus. Now, their discovery has led to safe blood transfusion. The doctors know to look for this virus. ● The Physics Prize goes to three researchers for the discovery of Black holes and its existence at the center of our galaxy! The recipients are Sir Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez. ● The Peace Prize goes to The World Food Program. They combat hunger and make sure more people have food. They prevent war from occuring due to hunger. ● The Economics Prize is awarded to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson for their work on auctions. Auctions are used in our everyday lives to allot all kinds of resources. For example, imagine there is a jar of coins and you need estimate the total value of the coins. The most optimistic player would estimate a large value and pay an amount much more than the true value of the jar to buy it. This is called a “winner’s curse.” The person that won the estimate is actually one that lost because they paid much more than the actual worth of the jar. Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson have worked to improve this bidding process. Why is all this relevant for us to know? The Nobel Prize website has lots of resources that explain all the outstanding contributions in a kid-friendly way. Learning about this can be very inspiring to us and we can aspire to make contributions to humankind in our own unique way!
