Animation, while often thought of as a more or less modern medium, has been being used in different forms since 1906! Throughout the last century, we have used it to entertain, as propaganda, and to tell stories that invoke emotion. The earliest known animated film was made in France in 1906, titled Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, and was made from chalk pictures. Since then, other small animations were made, but the first animated cartoon with synchronized was made by Walt Disney in 1928, called Steamboat Willie. Many cartoons like this followed, and they were used to entertain viewers with gags and charades of drawn characters. Nine years later, Disney released the first full-length future film, Snow White. And in 1993, software for 3D animation was created. All of these events lead up to the animation and films we see today. From Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse to live action movies with CGI, to popular YouTube animators like the animator Jaiden Animations, animation has become a popular form of storytelling that has helped shape the modern world. Animation is important because it makes us be able to tell stories and communicate emotions and ideas in a unique, easy-to-perceive way that both small children and adults can understand. Animation has helped connect people throughout the world in a way that sometimes writing and live-action films cannot. Today, anyone can pick up a drawing tablet and show their ideas to the world. Drawn figures can be funny, or make something sad or serious have a playful, less intimidating feel to it to make the viewer feel more comfortable. Other times, it allows people to be united by a single passion, such as a fandom, and work on huge projects (called MAPs, which stands for multi animator project) about their interest to make something as high-quality as a professional film, such as The Five Giants [COMPLETE Warrior Cats M.A.P.], regardless of what beliefs and opinions differ. Often, it has simply served as a way to make a heartwarming story that makes you think. Through live-action movies, people can form biases based on appearance and real-life personality of an actor playing a character. But as an animated character, the character feels like their own being. No matter what the exact use, animation is one of the most powerful creative tool we have, and we should continue to use it as a form of uniting people, no matter their beliefs, biases, or interests.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Writing My Own Path
By Sabrina Guo, 12 Writing My Own Path As a child, I loved the smell of libraries. I would flip through the pages of any book, and take a good, long sniff. My favorite scent was sweet–a bit of lemon and coffee, mixed with paper, of course. However, other books had a bitter smell and were covered with all kinds of food stains, which I hated because it reminded me of how books were sometimes treated just as paper and nothing more. I thought of each book as a life–a key to a specific person’s brain. At the same time, I hated books. I respected them and liked their smells, yes, but I absolutely loathed words. Every time I tried to read something as minor as a news headline, words would swarm around me like taunting wasps. While other kids talked about their new favorite books, I was the wallflower, standing away from the crowd and nibbling slowly on my sandwich. A memory: when I was five, I learned that To Kill a Mockingbird was a book loved all around the world. I decided to read it–after all, if there were so many positive reviews, how could I not love it? In addition, I was determined to open myself up and conquer my fear of words. I asked my father to check it out at the library. When he walked through our door with it, I was giddy with excitement. I flipped through it, smelling it like a perfume tester. It was unique and unlike any other book I’d smelled before–like moss drenched in rain, bittersweet and mature. Greedily, I started reading the first page. But almost immediately, dark words started to choke the air around me. The enlarged first letter pounced on top of me, and the rest of the words quickly followed, swimming around me. I tried to push my fears away, telling myself I wasn’t going to be engulfed this time. My fear of reading was going to end right there, right then, that second, with that very book. But because of its advanced language, I had no idea what was happening in the story. It was boring and tiring… and I was only halfway down the first page. I exhaled, telling myself there would be a next time. Then I slammed the book shut in frustration. Although I had a complicated relationship with books, I did love writing song lyrics. After school, I would transform my tangled thoughts into strings of words, which I wrote down in a tiny notebook about the size of my hand. Little did I know that these song lyrics were actually poems; later I would take a risk and reshape my lyrics into a more literary form. And that was how I took my first step into writing. From there, I decided to experiment with reading again. I borrowed many types of library books, but it was fantasy that finally hooked me. Fantasy made me feel like I was soaring above moonlit clouds, plucking shimmering stars from the sky and collecting them inside of my heart. These stories gave me an amazing sense of freedom, adventure, and suspense. And after a while, my interests expanded to other genres; I even started to read some news articles, which had intimidated me so much before. My father and I like to watch the news together, and last year, as coverage of the refugee crisis increased, he encouraged me to dig deeper into the topic. It can sometimes sound like it’s a simple, fast process to immigrate to the United States; but as I read up on the issue, I discovered that it’s far from easy or quick. It can actually take up to several years to go through all the necessary steps! Even after reaching the U.S., refugees can still face economic and emotional difficulties, along with discrimination. After learning all of this, I decided to write a blog about it, as I am a blogger and contributing writer to the children’s magazine, Stone Soup. I was also inspired to write a poem addressed to refugee children, welcoming them to their new home in the United States. I tried to explain some of things that they might encounter in their new country, from academic pressures to peer pressure. Writing the poem enabled me to think more deeply about what a refugee child might experience after leaving their home country. It challenged me to think outside of my own life and circumstances, and this poem was one of the first works I’d written truly from my heart. Around that time, William Rubel, the founder of Stone Soup, mentioned in his weekly newsletter that he hoped to create a platform to showcase refugee children’s art and writing. Due to my interest in the refugee crisis, I immediately volunteered to help. He suggested that I begin researching organizations, photographers, and artists who were working with refugee children. Through doing this, I found many amazing organizations. One in particular, Another Kind of Girl Collective (AKGC), really struck me. This organization, founded by Laura Doggett, holds photography and film workshops for Syrian refugee girls living in Jordan. AKGC aims to give refugee girls the deeply necessary space, training, and equipment to develop their preferred art forms, along with providing them a platform to share their own stories and experiences. The girls prove themselves not to be passive and tragic beings, which is sometimes how the media portrays them, but rather hardworking, creative, smart, and motivated visionaries. Because of how much I admired Laura’s work, I reached out to her through email, asking if I could interview her. I had doubts about whether she would respond. After all, I was just a twelve-year-old girl, and she was surely busy with her extremely important work. So you can imagine my elation when I did hear back from her! She told me she would be happy to give me an interview. She was heading to Jordan and even invited me
Saturday Newsletter: March 9, 2018
“Profile of a Guardian”Photograph (Nikon Coolpix L830) by Hannah Parker, 13. Published in Stone Soup, March 2019. A note from William Rubel Refugee project update I’d like to welcome Margie Chardiet, a former Stone Soup reader now working for the Oakland, California, writing program Chapter 510, as the newest member of the Stone Soup team. Margie is starting out with us working on the Refugee Project. She has started developing contacts with people working with resettled refugees and with people working with refugees in camps. Updates will follow over the next few months. March issue As I was reading the March issue, I was reminded of something that I have been wondering about lately. Is Stone Soup a magazine by kids for kids? Or, is Stone Soup a magazine by kids for everyone? Reading the current issue confirmed for me that there is no question about it: Stone Soup is for everyone who reads fiction, poetry, and looks at art. If we were to take the photos and ages off of the Stone Soup material, you’d you be hard pressed to identify Stone Soup as being a magazine by kids. As I was reading the March issue I just wanted to shout out, “Guys! Subscribe!” I’ll put it his way: regardless of your age, by not subscribing to Stone Soup you are denying yourself a lovely pleasure. To remind you, print is available on a monthly or annual basis. So, order for a month, get your issue, and if you don’t want another, then cancel. Stone Soup is great for kids too. Subscribe today. (Please note that print subscriptions are currently only available in the US and Canada, but watch this space for exciting news on that front in the coming weeks.) Here is Editor Emma Wood’s introduction to the March 2019 issue: This issue includes the winners of our concrete poetry contest; the winning poems are both beautiful visual works in their own right and inventive, singular texts. However, it is the combination of both shape (the form) and text (the content) that made these poems stand out. I hope when you sit down to write any work, but especially a poem, that you think about its form: Will it have stanzas? Will the lines be short or long? Will you use any rhyme or other sonic devices? These decisions are as important as what you end up writing. In addition to the concrete poems, there are many incredible photographs that I hope will encourage you to pick up a camera (or a phone), as well as stories and poems engaging with the theme of selfhood and belonging. I’d like to say something more. Holding this issue in my hand it was really clear that the issue is more than the sum of its parts. The design of the magazine, the selections Emma has made and the way she has organized them creates something very powerful. For example, the fabulous first prize-winning concrete poem, “Steam,” by Sabrina Guo, stands on its own, as does the evocative photograph “The Bridge,” by Marlena Rohde, in which you see one of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge disappear into the fog. But Emma brings them together on facing pages to they can speak together. Sabrina’s elegant concrete poem is in the shape of a teacup. The literal subject of the work is the steam rising from the spout of the boiling teakettle. However, as with any literary work—the work itself is about more than one thing. This work seems simple, but isn’t. “Octopus,” by Marco Lu, the second-place winner, is a tour de force of alliterative verse. Alliteration is when several words in a row begin with the same letter—as in “tender, twisting tentacles.” This is a form of poetry that has ancient roots in English verse. One of the first and most famous examples of this is in the wonderful poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from England in the 1300s. For the adventuresome amongst you read the first few lines of the poem in its original English along with the glossary that J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, added to make it more possible to read. Even if you can’t understand all of the words in the opening lines you will see the ancient roots to Marco’s alliterative voice. The unfamiliar character “Þ” (called “thorn”) is pronounced “th,” so the first word, “SiÞen,” is pronounced “Sithen,” which means “since” or “after.” There are many modern translations of the poem. A good family out-loud reading project. We all hate the aspect of contests that rigidly orders the winners. We are always struggling with this at Stone Soup. “Moonlight,” the third-place winner, by Ashley Xu, is a brilliant, evocative, lovely, extraordinary work. “Moonlight paints / the water white, rippling / like autumn frost on a window/pane, the texture of lace . . ..” But, of course, this is concrete poetry so these words join with others to make the shape of the full moon, and the poem, complex, continues beyond the shape of the moon’s face. William’s weekend project Aditya Sing’s collection of stories, “Unmasked,” is brilliant. This is a group of five incisive short short stories (pieces of flash fiction) that draw on the author’s life and experiences—but go far beyond simple autobiography. The works are varied. And insightful. We had a flash fiction contest last year and so have previously spoken about this genre. For today’s weekend project I want you to pick up your March issue, turn to page 6, and read his collection. If you have a digital subscription, then go to the current issue and and read his work. If you don’t subscribe and are still under your four free articles for the month, then go to the page and read. Then, with his works still fresh in your mind, pick a subject and write. Keep your pieces—you can think of them as sketches—to between 150 and 300 words. As always, if you are excited about what you write, upload it to
