The Young Visiters sold 300,000 copies in 1919! And that was just in Britain! The introduction to The Young Visiters was written by J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. In Britain, The Young Visiters was published by the prestigious house of Chatto and Windus; in the U.S. by George H. Doran. The book was published without corrections for spelling or punctuation. The first third of the twentieth century was a period of great ferment in the arts. This is the time when the arts became more abstract, this including painting, sculpture, music and the literary arts as well. Many of the period’s finest writers, particularly in Europe, began complex literary experiments, including jettisoning standard grammatical forms and typographic conventions: The Death of Vergil by the German author Hermann Broch, Finnegan’s Wake by the Irish author James Joyce, and The Sound and the Fury by the American writer William Faulkner are classic examples of authors stretching the limits of standard grammatical form. Publishing children’s writing without corrections in 1919 spoke, not to indulgence or a lapse in standards, but to a courageous look at the achievements of naïve artists, of artists working without a full complement of technical skills, but with something to say and the will to say it. When we published Crippled Detectives by Lee Tandy Schwartzman in 1978, it was no longer possible, if one wanted the work to be taken seriously, to publish a child’s manuscript virtually as is. Or at least so it seemed to us then, and still does today. We standardize spelling and punctuation in Stone Soup (and did so in Crippled Detectives), although we do leave grammatical innovations, as we did in the work we published by Huong Nguyen. As you read The Young Visiters, you will find yourself immersed in the world of popular romantic fiction of the first decades of this century. Re-reading The Young Visiters makes me feel much more tolerant of student writing that is heavily influenced by mass culture. It reminds me that we learn by copying; that the desire, and then the will to carry through with the desire to tell a story is the true underpinning that makes all great artists great. The rest of us are those who have made a list of great titles for our books, but haven’t been able to make the books to go along with them! We at Stone Soup hope that you enjoy The Young Visiters. It makes a good story to read aloud, as it’s lots of fun for everybody. Contents Preface by J. M. Barrie 1. Quite a Young Girl 2. Starting Gaily 3. The First Evening 4. Mr. Salteenas Plan 5. The Crystal Palace 6. High Life 7. Bernards Idear 8. A Gay Call 9. A Proposale 10. Preparing for the Fray 11. The Wedding 12. How It Ended Preface by J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan The “owner of the copyright” guarantees that “The Young Visiters” is the unaided effort in fiction of an authoress of nine years. “Effort,” however, is an absurd word to use, as you may see by studying the triumphant countenance of the child herself, which is here reproduced as frontispiece to her sublime work. This is no portrait of a writer who had to burn the oil at midnight (indeed there is documentary evidence that she was hauled off to bed every evening at six): it has an air of careless power; there is a complacency about it that by the severe might perhaps be called smugness. It needed no effort for that face to knock off a masterpiece. It probably represents precisely how she looked when she finished a chapter. When she was actually at work I think the expression was more solemn, with the tongue firmly clenched between the teeth; an unholy rapture showing as she drew near her love chapter. Fellow-craftsmen will see that she is looking forward to this chapter all the time. The manuscript is in pencil in a stout little note book (twopence), and there it has lain for years, for though the authoress was nine when she wrote it she is now a grown woman. It has lain, in lavender as it were, in the dumpy note book, waiting for a publisher to ride that way and rescue it; and here he is at last, not a bit afraid that to this age it may appear “Victorian.” Indeed if its pictures of High Life are accurate (as we cannot doubt, the authoress seems always so sure of her facts) they had a way of going on in those times which is really surprising. Even the grand historical figures were free and easy, such as King Edward, of whom we have perhaps the most human picture ever penned, as he appears at a levée “rather sumshiously,” in a “small but costly crown,” and afterwards slips away to tuck into ices. It would seem in particular that we are oddly wrong in our idea of the young Victorian lady as a person more shy and shrinking than the girl of to-day. The Ethel of this story is a fascinating creature who would have a good time wherever there were a few males, but no longer could she voyage through life quite so jollily without attracting the attention of the censorious. Chaperon seems to be one of the very few good words of which our authoress had never heard. The lady she had grown into, the “owner of the copyright” already referred to, gives me a few particulars of this child she used to be, and is evidently a little scared by her. We should probably all be a little scared (though proud) if that portrait was dumped down in front of us as ours, and we were asked to explain why we once thought so much of ourselves as that. Except for the smirk on her face, all I can learn of her now is that she was one of a small family
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Documenting history in children’s art: Egypt in the late 1970s
We at the Children’s Art Foundation were very lucky to be given these extraordinary felt pen drawings by the Egyptian government in the late 1970s. Besides being unusually strong works of children’s art most of them depict a day in history that still resonates: the visit by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977 to negotiate a peace treaty. Most of these pictures depict the parade that celebrated his return from that visit. Welcome to Sadat, by Khaled Abd Al Jalil, age 12, Egypt Celebrating the 6th of October Anniversary, by Nahed al Majra, age 14, Egypt Parade Marking Signing of a Peace Treaty with Israel, Cairo 1979, by Moustafa Mouhamud Hussein, age 14, Egypt Delighted with Peace, by Wahid Saif Al Nassar, age 13, Egypt The Street, by Aissam Abd al Jowad, age 13, Egypt The Street, by Arfat Mousani Abd Al Azziz, age 13, Egypt Elections, by Ashraf Anwar Ahman, age 11, Egypt Playing at School, by Souad Ramadan Mouhamad, age 13, Egypt Picking Oranges, by Tahal Taher Al Bata, age 14, Egypt Baking Bread at Home, by Saben Hassan El Sharkawi, age 14, Egypt Elections for the National Assembly, by Azza Abd Al Samiya, age 14, Egypt This was an historic meeting. It was a meeting that led to signing of a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, two countries that had formerly fought each other. Sadat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in bringing peace between Egypt and Israel. He was assassinated in 1981. Stepping back from the history–just look at these astonishing drawings of crowds! Pay particular attention to the freedom with which space is depicted. The young artists do not try to use vanishing point perspective, the drawing system that makes objects and spaces look three dimensional, that makes them look real. You have a bird’s-eye view, or perhaps you can think of it as a helicopter view of some of the street scenes. In the image on the upper right you see a wall of people. Notice the vibrant colors–the imitative way in which color is used. These young artists felt free to interpret the excitement of the day through an imaginative use of color. In reality, Cairo’s streets look like ours. They are not pink or orange or blue or green or yellow. Cairo streets don’t change color at intersections. But, they do in a couple of these pictures–and none streets are colored grey or black. You can also research these pictures for details of different lives and cultures, in specific points of history. Look at the second-to-last last picture, ‘Baking Bread at Home’. Note the details in the kitchen: a wood-fired bread oven; a kerosene light that suggests the house doesn’t have electricity; and the wash on the line. Look at the dress of the people in ‘Picking Oranges’, and how much manual labor is taking place. And get an insight into an Egyptian schoolyard in the 1980s in ‘Playing at School’. How different is it from any other school yard? You can order any of these images as prints from the Children’s Art Foundation’s Stone Soup store. Just search for Egypt to bring up the full selection.
Saturday Newsletter: September 22, 2018
“Excuse me, may I please have those two doves?” Illustrator Olivia Zhou, 12 for My Father’s Doves by Jenny Li, 11. Published May/June 2013. A note from William Rubel Reminder! Midnight, September 30. That is the absolute final deadline for recipes for the December food issue! Get cooking! Get writing! Enough said. It is a Stone Soup first! As we highlighted in last week’s blog round-up, Stone Soup blogger Lukas Cooke interviewed Patricia Newman, author of Plastic Ahoy!, a book on plastic pollution in the oceans. Those of you who follow Lukas’ blog know that he writes about nature and the environment–the perfect Stone Soup author to interview Ms. Newman. I’d like to congratulate Lukas. You did a really good job! I have been interviewed many times for press and for radio. Everything hinges on the quality of the questions one is asked. You asked good questions. Newsletter readers, if you missed it last week, please check out the interview this week–and leave a comment if you are so inclined. Lukas is not the only Stone Soup blogger writing about nature. Mia W. published an essay this week, ‘The Atlantic Net Pen Collapse’, that talks about the escape from a fish farm of an immense number of Atlantic salmon into the Salish Sea. Where is the Salish sea? Mia describes it as “a vast body of water, stretching from southwest British Columbia, Canada, to the northwest portion of Washington State, USA.” An informative, well-written essay, with a bibliography, I highly recommend it. The writing by Lukas and Mia, and other bloggers who are posting nonfiction, is broadening our Stone Soup world. Thank you, Mia and Lukas! I know that many of you write both fiction and nonfiction. While we are keeping fiction writing the main focus of Stone Soup magazine (although there is some great nonfiction in our September Science issue), the website is where we are now offering you an opportunity to write about absolutely anything that interests you. Join Mia and Lukas to write about the natural world, or Vandana R to write about books, or Leo T. Smith who writes about sports–and the list goes on, with wonderful writers on every issue under the sun. Have an interest? Love to write? Want to share your thoughts? If you are under the age of fourteen OR if you are involved in teaching writing, art, or music to kids then become a Stone Soup blogger! Write something up and upload it to the blog section of our online submission form so we can take a look. Now. For the rest of you! Again, this is regardless of your age, if you are not going to sit down and start working on what you hope will be your first Stone Soup blog entry, then I want you find some time this weekend to sit down and start writing about something that are you are really interested in right now, like today. For me, today, it is pit firing. After years and years of thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to fire pottery in the backyard?, but never doing it, I bought some clay, and with my daughter made two bowls where we hope our finches will make nests, two cooking pots, and two cookie stamps. I made sure the pottery was bone dry by putting it in a low oven this morning, and then I went for it: Cleared some ground in my backyard; built a small fire; when the fire had burned down put the pottery on the embers; and then piled wood over the pots–and lit it! I added a little more wood when the fire was roaring to ensure the pottery would get hot enough to fire; let it all die down; and after the heap was reasonably cool, I uncovered the pieces from the ashes. Miracle! Pottery! That is what I’d write about. You? Until next week This week’s story and art from the archives We do encourage you to click through to read the whole of this week’s featured story (as we hope you do every week!). 12-year-old Olivia Zhou’s lovely, detailed drawings, with their calm, understated color-palette complement the beautifully expressed evocation of the past, love and longing in 11-year-old Jenny Li’s story ‘My Father’s Doves’–which is about the father and the doves of the title, and so much more. Remember, subscribers have full, unlimited access to the whole archive on the Stone Soup website. Non-subscribers can read a limited number of stories, poems and posts. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at stonesoup.com! As mentioned above, we published Mia W’s nature and environment piece this week, ‘The Atlantic Net Pen Collapse’. Maybe I could use the doves to send a note to my father From Stone Soup May/June 2013 My Father’s Doves By Jenny Li, 11 Illustrated by Olivia Zhou, 12 Running to the market, my father clutched the bagful of coins to his chest. On the leather bag was sewn “,” horse, in Chinese, the only gift that his father had given him before the war. He hurried across town, walking under the wood sign with the words “Tai City” etched on it and following the path, which he knew by heart. He finally arrived at the center of town, full of street vendors selling fruits and other goods, with gray-uniformed soldiers at every corner. The coins were clanking against each other inside the bag as if clamoring to break free. My father lowered his eyes from the glaring of the men and shuffled to the doves’ area. He spilled the coins onto his calloused, rough hands and spoke to the salesperson. “Excuse me,” he said in a steady voice, “may I please have those two doves?” My father pointed to the two slender spotted doves perched inside an angular metal cage—the doves which he had admired for so long. The man glared suspiciously at him. “Do you have the money?” “Yes, sir,” replied my father, trying to look
