To be completely honest, when I first picked up this book, I thought it was childish. The cover of the book was way too colourful for my liking, and the first few pages were written more for younger elementary students than middle school ones. However, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, because Spotlight on Coding Club turned out to be a fun book on friendship, maturity, dealing with anxiety and, of course, lots of coding. What I really liked about this book (and the whole series) is that it made coding cool. According to this series, coding isn’t just a pastime for young white males addicted to computer games, but a fun hobby for girls of all ages, races and personalities. For example, coding is used by the coding club to create a voting system, design a website, program a robot to play music, and make dresses glow in the dark. (Although please be warned that coding isn’t as simple as the books make it to be. I do HTML, and I still don’t know how to add pages.) Another great thing about the book is the friendships between the five girls. One is white, one is black, one is Muslim, one is Chinese and one is Latino. But these friendships aren’t perfect; the girls keep secrets from each other, and sometimes get into arguments. But that’s okay, because real friendships aren’t perfect. This book also talks about family. Erin is worried about her divorced father, who has gone on a very dangerous training mission, and has remained uncontactable since February. Throughout the book, she keeps gazing at the gray dot beside her father’s name in the web chat app, and her worry for him is apparent. Erin also gets into disagreements with her mother. She doesn’t want to get another therapist for her anxiety, and hides her panic attacks from her mother. What was really memorable about the book was Erin’s anxiety. In the blurb, they almost mentioned it as some kind of disorder: “…Erin has a secret: She has anxiety.” But in the book, I learnt that anxiety isn’t something childish to be embarrassed about. Tania, Leila’s sister, said it best: “Erin, anxiety has nothing to do with age. Adults can have anxiety, too. And it doesn’t mean they can’t handle things, or that they’re immature. It’s not necessarily something you grow out of. It’s just something you learn to manage.” For me, being an autistic girl who has meltdowns and anxiety too, reading about Erin’s panic attacks and holding onto Brave Bonnie Broomstick as a security blanket was comforting. It means I’m not the only great-coder-slash-budding-actress-who-has-anxiety out there. This book is modern, in that texting features prominently. There are group texts, short forms, and emojis. A very interesting part is when Maya has a crush on Hannah, a beautiful girl with dark skin, causing her to blush whenever she sees Hannah. Same-sex relationships between two non-white girls of different races do not appear often in middle-grade fiction. Some kids may also be surprised when Erin does not appear shocked, but however encourages Maya to ask Hannah out on a date. Hopefully it wouldn’t be the only middle-grade book that has LGBTQA+ characters. To end off, if you want a book full of friendship fun, growing up and coding with the backdrop of a talent show, Spotlight on Coding Club is definitely for you! Girls Who Code: Spotlight on Coding Club by Michelle Schusterman. Penguin, 2018. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below!
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Is Apple Really as Green as it Seems?
Every year, around 151 million Apple products are thrown away. This is because they are made explicitly hard to repair, and the constant production of new products encourages Apple users to discard their old products and buy the new ones to keep up with the trend. Nearly every year, Apple makes a new Macbook, a new iPhone, a new iPad, and pretty much a new version of every product that they’ve made. Also, because Apple doesn’t carry replacement parts, most repair is done by third-party companies. In addition, although Apple claims it runs on 100% renewable energy, many third-party companies that manufacture Apple products don’t. As a result, because of their limited repairability, and therefore the encouraged discarding of old Apple products, greater e-waste is being contributed by Apple, and although Apple claims to have good environmental initiatives, it might not be as green as it seems. Apple products are very hard to fix once they are broken. Many parts are glued together, making them hard to dissect when trying to replace parts that can no longer function. One example is the 2013 Retina Macbook Pro. According to David Veksler, the Director of Technology at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), “It has non-upgradable solid state drive and memory that is soldered to the mainboard, the battery is firmly glued in place, the display assembly is bonded into a single unit, and proprietary pentalobe screws discourage me from opening it at all.” While all this wording may seem complicated, Mr. Veksler’s point is easy to understand: the design of Apple products discourage breaking them up and/or repairing them. For example, if your battery got damaged, it would be very tedious to take it out and replace it. But, Apple does have its reasons for doing this. It is often easier to design computers the way Apple is: bonding multiple components together. This is because If they bond parts together, it could provide modular advantage, and their employees don’t have to carry replacement parts or need to be trained for repairs. However, sometimes pieces are bonded together even when no modular advantage. Also, if you were to take apart your Apple device, it would void your warranty, which would be considered a risky move for most consumers. This lessens the amount of people that are willing to attempt to dissect Apple products even more, to the point that Apple wouldn’t profit much if they sold replacement parts. Finally, the fact that Apple makes its products hard to repair encourages Apple users to discard their old products to buy new ones. When a new Apple product is released, consumers are lured to buy it. Many will want it because they feel like their old products are out of date, but a lot of this also has to do with Apple products’ limited reparability, life, and durability. Because the typical consumer doesn’t have contact to third-party repair shops, and because Apple doesn’t carry replacement parts, most consumers’ only choice when it comes to a broken iPhone, iPad, or MacBook, or any hardware problems, is to straight-up buy a new device. Here is Mr. Veksler’s experience: “I replaced [my old computer] in 2016, only three years later because I had filled up the hard drive and decided to upgrade to a new computer. My new, maxed-out MacBook Pro with Touch Bar cost just about $3,000.” Just think about that $3,000, invested just because your hard drive was maxed out. Most hard drives cost no more than a few hundred dollars! As you can see, this scam results in more profit for Apple. Although Apple does care about the environment, they clearly care about profit more. Each year, around 150 million Apple products are thrown away, mostly because of the open-looped flow of products, detailed above, in which products are tossed rather than recycle and reused. An even more appalling fact is that last year, Apple made around 265.6 billion dollars, yet they didn’t use a whole lot of that to help the environment. Clearly, they could have invested money into reducing their e-waste (e.g. making hardware that is easier to repair), but they really haven’t. Also, not only is Apple dishonest in their sales, they are dishonest in their claims, too. Perhaps you have heard about how Apple runs on 100% renewable energy. “We’re committed to leaving the world better than we found it. After years of hard work, we’re proud to have reached this significant milestone,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re going to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the materials in our products, the way we recycle them, our facilities and our work with suppliers to establish new creative and forward-looking sources of renewable energy because we know the future depends on it.” This is partly true, but again, Apple is lying. Although nearly all of Apple’s in-house operations are running on 100% renewable energy, many third-party factories which manufacture Apple products do not. Although Apple has initiated a Supplier Clean Energy program, Apple relies on more than 200 manufacturers, and only a fraction of them have reached the goal of running on 100% renewable energy, and around a quarter and at most half are aiming for it. According to Harry Domanski at Techradar (Of April 2018), “The 23 suppliers that are currently on board represent a promising start to the program, but Apple will need to do more than ‘drive broader awareness’ and ‘empower suppliers to set goals’ if it wants to incentivize the uptake of the program to the remaining 200 odd suppliers and, ultimately, reduce the 21,175 million metric tons of carbon emissions that the manufacturing process produces.” This means that, although Apple has good intentions, it needs to find a better way to make people believe them than lying or telling half-truths. Apple’s failed efforts to make dishonest profits, and even worse, their efforts to cover them up with lies, does not bode well for the reputation of the company. If Apple really
Saturday Newsletter: February 8, 2020
Reflection by Margaret Fulop, 11 (Lexington, MA), in Stone Soup February 2020 A note from Jane A few weeks ago I went to a lunchtime concert of music by Johann Sebastian Bach. The lead performer, a viola player called Maxim Rysanov, specializes in transcriptions of Bach’s music. This means that he rewrites music originally composed for one instrument so it can be played on another one. For this concert, he had transposed Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 for viola, arranged a selection of two-part inventions from The Little Keyboard Book for viola and and violin, and rewritten the Sonata in G Major for viola da gamba and harpsichord to be played by viola and concert organ. The performance was recorded by the BBC and broadcast on Thursday as part of their lunchtime concert series. You can read more about it and listen to the recording via BBC Sounds. The music is incredibly beautiful, but my reason for mentioning it in this week’s newsletter is to suggest this idea of musical transcription as a tool you can use to develop your writing. Just as the viola player revealed another dimension of a familiar piece of cello music by transferring it from the voice of one instrument to the voice of another, so too might you discover more about your story’s characters by writing a poem about them, or writing a poem in their voice. Maybe you can understand your poem’s emotional landscape or setting by transposing it into a story or a drama. Perhaps drawing your imaginary landscape or painting a portrait of your lead character will help you to see them more clearly. We all learn that writing is often mostly about rewriting. I don’t know about you, but sometimes that feels like something I don’t really want to do—a bit of a chore. Why not try transposition as a way of coming at rewriting from a fresh perspective? You might not use your transposition in the final work, but you might create a whole new work to sit alongside the original one. Either way, you can hit the refresh button and have fun trying! Until next time, Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Sascha, 13, reviews Jacqueline Woodson’s Harbor Me on the blog this week. Read the review to find out why Sascha “would unquestionably recommend this novel to anyone that is interested in gaining a higher perspective of people from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.” Have you ever tried to solve a Rubik’s Cube? Matthew gives us some background about Rubik’s Cubes on the blog this week, plus an easy method that you can try. From Stone Soup February 2020 The Creases of Time By Tara Prakash, 12 (Chevy Chase, MD) Time—did it slip through my fingers, flow Subtly as water? My little big brother, Running across the pastures with his kite, where did that go? Footsteps trailing mine, hands clasped tightly—my mother. I can see the time pass in the creases of my Grandfather’s eyes, his skin lined with the trick of time. If only It wouldn’t go so fast, then we wouldn’t need to say so many goodbyes All too soon. If just once, my world could live forever . . . But if all worlds lasted forever, when Would new ones be born? Babies gaze at the world with big eyes, bright, Seeing things they’ve never seen before. The old watch with Eyes that have seen too much, the pale that follows a dark night. Time forces us to make use of what we have, unfurled, It forces us to say goodbye and hello to the ever-changing world. 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.
