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Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: September 26, 2020
“Rainbow Lake” by Sage Millen, 12 (Vancouver, Canada). Published in Stone Soup September 2020. A note from Sarah I want to start off this newsletter by highlighting Sage Millen’s breathtaking photograph from this month’s issue. I encourage you to spend some time taking in the mesmerizing, almost otherworldly landscape that Sage has captured. Then I also want to remind you that if you’re interested in helping out with our new Publicity and Outreach Community, we’d love to have you! You can fill out the Google Form here to let us know your contact information and how you can help. I’ve been working the past few months on developing the Stone Soup podcast, which is very exciting. Hopefully it will be released soon for everyone to hear! This work has meant that I’ve had the pleasure of revisiting a lot of the stories and poetry read aloud on our Soundcloud account. Reading aloud is not as easy as it may seem. It’s a skill that requires a lot of practice. For your weekend project, I suggest that you take a piece of writing—maybe something you’ve written or a piece that you really enjoy—and read it aloud a few times. Try not to rush yourself. Read it deliberately and carefully, keeping in mind a listener who may be hearing it for the first time. Think also about what kind of inflections suit the story or poem. If there’s dialogue, do you give each character a different voice? A different accent? Or do you want to maintain the same tone throughout the story? These are things you can consider when reading a story aloud, and it changes the way we understand and interpret a piece. Listening to audiobooks might give you a better idea of different ways that reading aloud can be done. Make a note of which elements of audiobooks you like, and think about how you could incorporate them into your own reading-aloud technique. You can record yourself reading—or not, if you don’t yet feel comfortable. If you’re feeling ambitious, maybe you can organize a Zoom reading between your friends, family, or classmates. Let us know how it goes! Until next week, Stay Tuned for Next Month’s Flash Contest Every month we hold a flash contest based on one of our weekly creativity prompts. Take a look at this month’s prompt and the winner here. And keep an eye out for next month’s contest! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! In a diary-style post, Prisha describes her experience marching in a Black Lives Matter protest. She talks about what it was like and what she learned in “Spread Love Not Hate.” Olivia, 10, reviewed the book King of Shadows by Susan Cooper. Read Olivia’s review to find out what she thought of the book and why she says it was about so much more than acting. Read an update from the writing workshop from last Saturday, where we learned about dragonfly narratives from two guest facilitators. Leila Lakhal, 12Seattle, WA From Stone Soup September 2020 Our Blanket By Leila Lakhal, 12 (Seattle, WA) Everyone has their own opinion. But it is not okay To say to me that I am wrong. That I am bad. That I have no place here. Because I just said that I am Muslim. We are not terrorists. Not the Awful people the media depicts us as. Every group has people who don’t follow the rules. The Islam I know teaches me: Don’t harm a hair on their head. No matter who they are. No matter what they say. But it is not okay to tell me that I have to say sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Saying sorry for all those rule breakers that gave you a false image. Tear that image away. Underneath you will see something beautiful. . . . /MORE 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.
Writing Workshop #22: Dragonfly Narratives
An update from our twenty-second Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop held on Saturday September 19, plus some of the output published below Dragonflies have amazing eyes that refract and can see in multiple directions all at once. The images they see are thousands of times more complex than what other creatures can see. This workshop, devised and brought to us by Jennifer Rinterknecht and Denise Donnio, both educators based in France, was designed to get us thinking about how our minds and our writing can be more like a dragonfly’s eye: can we capture simultaneously different voices, different narratives, and the extraneous thoughts that are going on while we are writing? Can those random distractions become part of the narrative, like the texts or notes we pass in class become part of the story of the class being taught or the chat in Zoom becomes part of our Workshops? They presented a few examples of this idea of layered narration, and suggested a simple way of trying to capture this as we wrote–by using two columns, one for the narrative that obeys the conventional rules (Grammar A) and one for the stray thoughts and seemingly irrelevant other thoughts that occur (Grammar B) while writing in the first column. As always, our workshop participants rose to the challenge, with some innovative and impressive work. In some, the distraction became the narrative; in others the layers were in many dimensions, from different voices, media, forms and perspectives. Congratulations everyone who read, wrote and took part, and thank you Denise and Jen for an inspiring workshop! The Writing Challenge: Write a parallel narrative–one in standard form, one in whatever form it comes. The Participants: Nova, Rithesh, Katie, Charlotte, Georgia, Peri, Anya, Simran, Scarlet, Liam, Maddie, Jonathan, Olivia, Tilly, Samantha, Janani, Helen, Madeline, Ella, Chloe, Ma’ayan, Keyang, Dana, Charlotte, Cassandra, Ava, Jayden, Maggie, Sophie, Enni, Juniper, Sierra, Elbert, Hera, Nami, Dhesh, Sophia, James, Ever, Emma, Gia, Sophia, Eden. Liam Hancock, 12Danville, CA All That They Know Liam Hancock, 12 All That They Know I heard the idiot was messing w/ u again today. 🤨 Yeah, and? Lol, idk. Just saying, I heard. Lol. Ok. Want to video chat? Idk if I have time, but I can check. If not, me and the boiz are heading to the park later. Wanna come? What ⏰??? 10:30, 11:00, something like that. 🤷♂️ If I can sneak out, sure. Ok. Ok. Hey, Little Mikey just told me he tried beating you up???🤜 The idiot? Who else would it be? Idk. Did u put up a fight??? Sure I did. And? And what? And did u win? How do u define winning? Ummm…. winning? It’s pretty self explanatory. Well then I guess I did. Are u coming to the park later? Why’d u ditch us last night? If I can sneak out I’ll come. Lol. Lol, try to see u then. 😂 All That They Need To Know I heard he was fighting w/ u again today. 🤣 Like it was a fight at all. He grins, leaning back on his bed. The phone is propped haphazardly in his hands. This kid, right? I can’t believe he honestly thinks I like him. Yeah, and? What do u mean, it wasn’t a fight? He frowns, massaging the crimson red scar painting his neck. What the heck? Lol, idk. Just saying, I heard. And I heard that he beat u into a pulp. He laughs softly to himself. Stop it. He tries shutting off his phone, but the next text comes too quickly. He can’t not read it now. Want to video chat so I see how fast I can send u running back into ur room again? His old record is just seconds No, and I won’t go to the park either. I’m done w/ u and ur stupid friends. He bashes the phone on the side of the couch and shoves his head into the pillow. Hey… sry about that the other day. Idk what got into me. A stupid grin plays across his face. Back for Round 2. I’ve had a bad day. Please. He lays listlessly on the floor of the basement, the phone tangled in blankets. The idiot fought u again? Little Mikey told me. On the other end of the video chat, the idiot feeds him lines. Little Mikey’s an idiot too. But yeah. Yeah, the idiot fought me. The box of Band-Aids lays overturned and empty on the mangy carpet in front of him. And did you win? Lol 😝 like u would Somehow, he isn’t laughing this time as the idiot does on the other line. No. And I never do. Congrats on ur victory. He gulps, watching as the other end of the text goes silent. Hello? Hello? Hello? Are you there? I’m sorry. Hello? Scarlet He, 9Scarsdale, NY Japanese Food Festival Scarlet He, 9 Grammar A: The streets were filled with people swarming to get food from the brilliant, bright and beautiful carts. Smells of onigiri, a yummy rice ball with seaweed, ikayaki, a grilled, salty octopus on a stick, and sushi, rice wrapped with seaweed and topped with seafood fill the air. I bite into a piece of pickled radish from my bento. A salty, sour taste fills my mouth with joy. I take a sip from my bottled ramune soda, a spicy type of soda that gets its spice from a ramune ball. My arms are piled with towering food bowls. The smell is so delightful that I want to take off my nose and make it grow wings to fly around and smell the food. Then, I hear a rumbling. Time seems to stop as the bowls all came crashing down. A miso soup bowl splatters on my head, leaving my hair a miso mess. My clothes are splattered with ikayaki sauce. Everyone is looking at me now. What a great day. Grammar B: The smell of asari miso soup fills my nose! I jump
