“A Glimpse of Winter” by Hannah Parker, 13 (South Burlington, VT), published in Stone Soup December 2019 A note from William Rubel For our adult readers Firstly, I’d like to thank those of you who have so far given to our Annual Fundraising Drive. Your vote of confidence in us is much appreciated. Thank you. Donations are a huge help to us. Like most cultural organizations the basic charges–like the entrance fee, ticket price, or in our case, subscription revenue–don’t fully cover our budgets. The bulk of our income–and the way we further our nonprofit purpose–comes from selling subscriptions to Stone Soup, and through selling books by kids. By and for children. That is what Stone Soup is all about. Empowering children to read and to be creative by publishing the best work by their peers. Books make the best gifts Our newest anthology, The Stone Soup Book of Science Fiction is shipping now! This brings the number of Stone Soup anthologies to 9: over 1800 pages of short stories and poems by young authors; treasure trove of reading material. The 2019 Annual (all 458 pages of it!) is also shipping as I write. Take advantage of the special holiday discounts we have on both groups of books: -Buy the Stone Soup Book of Science Fiction at full price ($10); get any other anthologies for just $6.50 each. -Buy one Stone Soup Annual 2019 at full price ($34.99); get $10 off 2018 and $15 0ff 2017. These discounts will be automatically applied in our Online Store while stocks last. You can also buy all our books on Amazon (at full price). If you buy on Amazon, please consider making Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc. your selected Amazon Smile charity. Please also keep Stone Soup subscriptions in mind for the Holidays. Monthly and Yearly Subscriptions are available at our website. And now–on to the main subject of today’s Newsletter! For everyone–William’s Weekend Project The story we are featuring today, “There Goes the Sun,” from the current issue of Stone Soup includes a recording of the story read by the author, Phoebe Donovan. The recording is a really fine one and joins the many other audio files posted to the Stone Soup SoundCloud account. I encourage more of you to explore this treasure trove of spoken word and musical compositions by Stone Soup’s authors and composers. I haven’t mentioned young composers for some time. Your compositions are always welcome. There is a submission category for music on the Submissions page. Phoebe’s “There Goes the Sun” includes passages of incredible intensity. I call your attention in particular to the opening scene in the subway car. This is a brilliant evocation of the sensation of sitting in a subway, bus, car, train, airplane, where you are at once very present–registering every detail of your surroundings–and at the same time your mind is wandering. And, when you get up and leave the vehicle you were in to re-enter the world, you are often in an in-between state. The word for this is a “liminal” state: not exactly here, and not exactly there. This is how Phoebe captures this moment: He wobbled off the subway and into daylight. The sun against his skin felt like an electrical shock. How was it that he felt so weak and vulnerable? The strength of Phoebe’s writing is her ability to make her characters seem real through brilliantly imagined feelings–bodily feelings and emotional feelings. I don’t want to say more about “There Goes the Sun” because I don’t want to give the premise or the unfolding events away. Read it for yourself. And then, I’d like you to write a story that brings a character to an in-between state. A liminal state. The classic liminal state that we all experience is when we may be falling asleep or waking up but are experiencing a feeling of being neither asleep or awake! Or, there are often points in relationships when you are becoming friends or stopping being friends where you might not really be sure–are you friends? Yes? No? Something in between? Some of you reading the Newsletter are tweens (an official label that more than hints at in-betweenness!), and feeling that you are not quite a kid but also not quite a teenager. I want you to think about this “in-between” idea, and then incorporate it into a story or a poem. When you are happy with something, you know where to send it. We look forward to reading it. 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! On Monday, we posted a review by Arielle, 13, of Langston Hughes’s poem “Dreams” (which you can read here). She discusses how Hughes expertly uses repetition and metaphors to make the short poem meaningful. Then on Thursday, Keshav reviewed E. B. White’s classic children’s book The Trumpet of the Swan. Keshav writes: “With elements of humor, suspense, and realistic imagery, The Trumpet of the Swan is a classic that many people will easily relate to and that you just can’t read too many times.” Read the rest of the review here. Personal Narrative Contest Closes Tomorrow! Are you ready to submit your entry? Get it in before tomorrow’s closing date! Read more on our contest page, and submit at the link here. Winners will be announced in early 2020. And remember, everyone has access to the free series of tips for improving your writing, made specially for this contest by our partners at the Society of Young Inklings. The video series and the tips for revision are helpful for this contest and for writing projects in general. Nikon Coolpix L830 From Stone Soup December 2019 There Goes the Sun By Phoebe Donovan, 11 (Boulder, CO) Robin stared at the orange plaid subway seat across from him, thinking about his father. How he always liked listening to “Yellow Submarine.” How after all that Robin had been through, his dad’s favorite song was still played all across the world.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Trumpet of the Swan, Reviewed by Keshav Ravi, 8
“Birds are a special problem, birds are hard to deal with.” This is what many people seem to think, and understandably, when a bird has just robbed their shop. However, Louis, in E.B.White’s The Trumpet of the Swan, proves exactly the opposite. Louis is a swan who was born with no ability to make sound or communicate with his family. His father breaks into a store in Montana to find Louis a trumpet so that he can make swan sounds like everyone else and persuade Serena, the swan he loves, to be his mate. With the help of Sam Beaver, an animal-loving boy, he goes to school and learns to communicate with humans by writing on a slate. He also works to earn money to pay for the stolen trumpet by playing songs which Sam helps him learn. The Trumpet of the Swan is special because of the strong relationship that forms between Sam and Louis, right from when Louis first meets Sam in the woods of Canada, and how they work together to solve Louis’s problems. Their friendship is the heart of the story and is what makes it a forever favorite for me. Something that surprised me was finding humor in an otherwise moving story. One instance among several that comes to mind is when Louis is swimming in front of the swan boat in Boston playing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” when a boy shouts, “This swan is as good as Louis Armstrong, I’m going to call him Louis.” Then Louis writes on his slate, “That’s actually my name.” This really made me laugh. White’s poetic description of nature is another feature I enjoyed. For example, the coming of spring is described as a time when “Warm air, soft and kind, blew through the trees.” With elements of humor, suspense, and realistic imagery, The Trumpet of the Swan is a classic that many people will easily relate to and that you just can’t read too many times. Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. HarperCollins, 1970. 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!
“Dreams” by Langston Hughes, Reviewed by Arielle, 13
In his poem “Dreams,” Langston Hughes puts heart-touching words to address society and the world. Hughes develops the idea that life is hard when you don’t have dreams. He develops this theme by using repetition and metaphors. First, Hughes uses repetition. For example, Hughes restates the line, “Hold fast to dreams” twice. He is trying to emphasize that you should really hold on to your dreams and chase them. You should do this no matter what because otherwise your dreams may slip away. Another way Hughes uses repetition is through his line structure. The first 3 stanzas in each verse start with the same 3 words: Hold, For, and Life. To describe a world without dreams, Langston Hughes uses two metaphors. The first metaphor is: “Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” Here Hughes compares a frustrating life without dreams to a “broken-winged bird.” When Hughes makes this comparison, I picture a bird’s broken wing who can’t fly but tries his or her hardest. It makes me think life may be hard, but you can still try to make it better. This reminds me of my dad. In 2018, he had a seizure and passed out on the floor. My uncle found him and took him to the hospital. Ever since then, he’s been sick, but he gets better every day. My dad’s situation has demonstrated to me that you can bounce back. No matter what he’s going through he still keeps fighting. The second metaphor Hughes uses is: “Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.” This image makes us see how hard it would be to get back on your feet after losing something as dearly important as your dreams. This reminds me of my cousin. She loved the house she raised her children in. One time her checks came in but they weren’t enough to pay her rent that month. Then the same thing happened the next month, so she got evicted. She felt hurt and cried. She was devastated and forced to stay in a homeless shelter. She went around looking for a new home, but the houses she looked at were too expensive or not available. She went back to the shelter, feeling stuck. Because she remembered her dreams, she never gave up. She realized she had to push herself harder, and eventually she found another house and got on her feet. Both images let us see how Hughes thinks about how life is so hard without dreams. By using repetition and metaphors, Hughes allows the reader to get pulled in to get thinking about the importance of dreams. You have to be diligent to get what you want and you have to prove yourself. Then maybe “the barren field filled with snow” won’t be so hard after all. Read Langston Hughes’s “Dreams” here. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes. VintageClassics, 1995. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book, or any poems by Hughes? Let us know in the comments below!
