In thinking back to when I was younger, I only have vague memories of a miniature TV we used to have. It was so small that if my dad stood in front of it, I could have sworn that you wouldn’t be able to see the TV behind him. In fact, I recall that it was even smaller than our computer (which isn’t very big). The quality was horrible too, but I never really noticed. I just remember being enthralled in being able to watch our 20-year-old DVDs on this tiny screen. Watching TV was a treat for me as a young child, since we probably watched something only about once every month or so. We never watched shows, just DVDs. That was something to look forward to; something to provide me with mild entertainment. Then, one day, it was gone. My parents gave our TV away to goodwill, just like that. I was confused, but not upset. It wasn’t like we watched it everyday. Still, I wouldn’t have minded having a TV in the house. “We’ll get a new one,” my parents assured me. “A bigger one. A better one.” But we never did. So, I turned to a new form of entertainment. Whenever I was bored; so bored that I could not bear to read another book or even play outside, I stared out my window. Like magic, my window transformed into my very own TV screen. It had practically every channel a child like me would ever want. I watched my younger neighbors squabble over their games outside. I watched squirrels chase one another up trees. I watched leaves dancing in the wind. In June, the towering jacaranda tree in front of my house would bud dazzling purple flowers, which drifted down with the wind and blanketed the ground. Once, I even watched two neighbors yell at each other over nothing. When I was around eight years old, some wasps built a nest right on the outside of my parents’ bedroom window. This was the beginning of a brand new channel on my TV. I watched, captivated, as the wasps buzzed around, building a nest. Whenever I had nothing to do, all I had to do was stare out the window and see my very own nature show. As far as my concerns went, it was far better than any TV. Meanwhile, my mother was constantly teaching piano downstairs, providing the perfect soundtrack to my shows. Every so often these days, my family reconsiders getting a new TV. But I never get too involved in those conversations– because I’m perfectly content. While everyone else was busy watching strangers act out scenes on their emotionless black screens, I found out a secret: The best source of entertainment is right outside your window.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
We Can’t Breathe, a poem by Raeha Khazanchi, 11
Raeha Khazanchi, 11Rochester, NY We Can’t Breathe Raeha Khazanchi, 11 We can’t breathe Why can’t we breathe? Because he can’t breathe Why can’t he breathe? Because his breath was stolen from his body We are not treated equally Why are we not treated equally? Because he was not treated equally Why was he not treated equally? Because this a world where your color of skin matters We are hungry Why are we hungry? Because he is hungry What are we and him hungry for? We and him are hungry for justice.
Weekly Writing Workshop #14, Friday July 3, 2020: Create a Character Sketch (in writing)
An update from our fourteenth Weekly Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop, plus some of the output published below The Stone Soup Weekly Writing Workshop is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers. Every Friday, we meet for an hour-and-a-half via Zoom to respond to a new writing challenge, write together in our virtual room, and then share what we have written with one another. Our conversation on Friday July 3 was attended by young writers from the US, the UK, and France. Our discussion started with us looking at artist’s sketches, so that we could get a feel for their roughness, how the artist only draws the significant parts of their character, so that we could translate this into our writing. We also read a few excerpts from texts where a character was described, so that we could get an idea of the different ways to describe a character. We examined a few sketches and paintings to identify what the most important parts of the characters were, and then we wrote for ten minutes, creating a simple sketch for a character of our own design. Then, after we shared a few of our pieces, we went back to writing, this time, to create a new character and to place them in a story. This showed the contrast between the simple sketch that we wrote first, and the more complex one that we wrote second. Read on below to get a feeling for some of the powerful writing we were given a glimpse of in this session! The Writing Challenge: Write a character sketch (or two) that gives the reader a vivid image of your character. The Participants: Ever, Maddie, Sneha, Alice, Lena, Peri, Tilly, Hera, Lucy, Anya, James, Abi, Sophia, Enni, Kanav, Shaili, Janani, Gracie, Aditi, Kathy, Sara, Madeline, Rachel, Charlotte, Seraj, and more . . . Araliya, 11Sandy Hook, CT The Giant Man Araliya, 11 A giant of a man stood in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair. His voice was a very loud grunt. Every time he stepped, the ground shook. He just stood there waiting for an invitation to come in. Five minutes later, he walked into the house and said, “where is Sabre Williams?” Sneha Arun, 10San Jose, CA Mourning Sneha Arun, 10 A long black veil covered her pretty face. She clutched a photograph of him smiling. She was mourning. The features of her face could be seen only when you approached her closely. Her wavy blonde hair curled softly at her shoulders. Her rosy red lips betrayed a sense of foreboding as they morphed into a sad smile. Her blue eyes seemed vacant. She seemed to look beyond the masses of people that tried to comfort her. Out of each eye, came a stream of tears, leaving her eyes red and puffy. She walked into the house, feeling her sadness drown her, while her delicate lace dress formed pools of water. She felt alone in this big world, her one solace was that her husband would always be in her heart. Heather Sierra, 10Mountain View, CA Shoes Heather Sierra, 10 The mother pulled her black hair into a ponytail. She sat on a rough, torn, gray airport seat with a tiny girl in her lap, crowded in by hundreds of others. The girl seemed much happier than the mother. She had a sweet smile on her face, and her big brown eyes were bright with curiosity. She looked around, her long, brown braid that hung down her back swiveling alongside her head. “Mama?” she whispered in a voice so low and quiet, yet so sharp and loud to her mother’s listening ears. “Yes, darling?” her mother replied, tucking her long, silky ponytail into the blackish-colored hood of her jacket. The little girl, who looked about five or six didn’t reply. She either had forgotten her question or no longer cared. The girl’s eyes were glued to an advertisement, something with bold letters and cheery images that her mother couldn’t quite see from the distance between them. The little girl was mesmerized by the illustration on the billboard. The little girl slowly slid off of her mother’s lap, leaving her solemn mother behind. Tucking her too-tight and fading purple shirt into her rainbow, flowing skirt, she began to walk toward the billboard, her tight, clicking, black shoes, tapping against the tile floor. “Come back!” her mother cried, although not nearly loud enough to be heard through the airport chaos. The girl toddled along, taking each step carefully, her black sneakers tap-tapping against the cold metal floor of the airport. Approaching the advertisement, she stopped. There was a brilliant drawing of a black-and-blue pair of shoes, blue on the heels, black laces, and an extraordinary paragraph of unreadable words. “Shoes.” the girl pronounced the word with ease and gentleness, an important word to her. She looked down at her own pair, battered and old yet still comfortable and soft. The laces were well-worn and appeared tired of being knotted so many times. The girl loved the billboard with all of her heart. How much she would give to have a pair of shoes like those. “Come back!” her mother called, finally speaking up again. The little girl looked up at her mother, toward the sign, and back to her mother, as if trying to decide which was more important. Pulling her braid tight in her little girl grip, she wandered back to her mother’s seat. Without a word, she smiled up at her mother, the big, happy smile that she’d started with, and said one word, just one word: “Shoes.” Anya Geist, 14Worcester, MA Two Characters Anya G., 14 1. Like the rest of his body, his face was small. Not smushed in any way, just petite. His features were slightly sharp, like a dulled
