To Kill A Mockingbird is about Scout, a girl growing up in Alabama with her brother Jem, a daring adventurous boy, her friend Dill, Calpurnia, a motherlike figure who watches over her, and Atticus, her father, a kind and caring person who stands up for what is right. When Tom Robinson, a black man, is wrongly accused of committing a crime, the Judge knows that Atticus is the right person to be Tom Robinson’s lawyer. In Alabama, blacks had different churches and had their own section of the courtroom. They didn’t mix with whites. When a black man was accused by a white man, he was nearly sure to lose. Society was clearly very different then. But despite the differences in society, I can relate to Scout as well as if she was growing up in the 21st century. One thing that helps me relate to Scout is that the book is written from her point of view. Although the story is about Tom Robinson’s case, it also talks about Scout’s daily troubles from Jem ignoring her to her teacher reprimanding her. These details about her daily life are what make the book hard to put down. Tom Robinson’s case causes problems for Scout. People were angry with her father and it infuriated her because she felt that people have no right to be angry. At the same time it scared her. She worried that their anger will lead to actions against her father. Although I never felt such feelings, I can easily understand the way Scout thinks. Every other character in To Kill A Mockingbird is just as vibrant and realistic. Another example is Calpurnia. At the beginning of the book, Scout does not like Calpurnia because she is too strict. However, as the book goes on, Scout grows fonder of Calpurnia. Calpurnia stays as strict as she always was but in other ways, she proves that she cares. When Atticus was out of town, she took Jem and Scout to church with her. When miss Lula May, another woman who went to Calpurnia’s church, said that Jem and Scout should not be at the church because they were white, Calpurnia defended them. I can relate to this because my mother is strict with me. She wants me to work hard on math and music. Recently, she told me to start playing a song that my violin teacher had not assigned yet. I was very annoyed by this. I was already working hard and didn’t need to add this extra work to my practice. Reading about Calpurnia and Scout reminded me that my mom is strict with me because she cares about me and wants me to excel. Like my mother, Calpurnia really cared about Jem and Scout. She was like a mother to them. and by the end of the book they wouldn’t think of letting her leave. Through Calpurnia and other characters, To Kill A Mockingbird shows that nobody is perfect and everyone is good in some way. Tom Robinson was not perfect, but he was innocent. He was convicted because he was black. We have come a long way, but today African Americans are still treated unfairly and we should do our best to prevent it. To Kill A Mockingbird shows us how wrong prejudice is and reminds us to try to be fair and just. We also learn form Atticus to stand up for what we believe in and to never give up. There is a lot to learn from this book and you should read it to discover plenty of wise thoughts and ideas. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1960. 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
Beasts Made of Night, Reviewed by Mirembe Mubanda, 12
Are you craving an action packed, magic filled, fantasy novel, with a cliffhanger ending? Then Tochi Onyebuchi’s Beasts Made of Night is meant for you. The teenage main character, Taj, is an aki. All aki are required to ‘eat’ other people’s sins. To eat a sin beast, an aki must first battle it to death. This is an extremely dangerous and life threatening job, because the sin beasts are very difficult to defeat and can easily destroy an aki. Once the sin beast is killed, it dissolves into an inky, black substance. The aki are forced to swallow this revolting liquid. After that happens, a tattoo of the sin beast is branded into the aki’s skin. They will also feel the guilt of the bad deed that is not theirs. Once an aki eats too many sins, he or she will die. On top of feeling the burden of remorse, the aki are unjustly treated like second-class citizens. This reminds me of some of the commonly overlooked, but important jobs in today’s world, such as migrant farm workers, who work on plantations, for long hours and low pay. They work hard, but are taken advantage of, because of their need for a job. As the book progresses, Taj and the princess of the royal family (the Kayas) fall in love. Will they stay a couple? He and his best friend Bo are struggling to stay alive. To survive they must abide by the rules, and destroy sin beasts; but still not eat too many sins, to prevent themselves from dying. Will their friendship be torn apart by envy and different political views? I can relate to Taj and Bo’s problem about being friends with someone, but having different political perspectives, because I have some friends who don’t have the same opinions on what the United States government is doing wrong that I do. The difference is that I am not living in a place where my views on politics can affect whether I live or die. If my friends and I disagree on a political issue, we share our points of view, debate them, then move on, but in Taj’s world the political system is such dire situation that views affect whom he trusts, deeply. Throughout the book, Taj meets people who want to help him. Do they truly want to change the lives of aki in a positive way? Taj and a few supporters of aki rights meet in secret. Will they ever be discovered? While thinking about the secretive meeting that he attends, I was reminded of how in some countries in the world, such as Russia, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela, and North Korea, if people publicly criticize the government, he or she faces the consequence of being thrown in prison without a fair trial. In the last few chapters of the novel there is a huge fight scene involving the whole town of Kos (the village that Taj lives in). One of the other lead characters who Taj assumes to be on his side, unleashes a brutal plan to destroy Kos, to get want they want: Aki to be treated equally to non-Akis. Demolishing Kos would mean killing majority of the population, and only sparing a few lives, and wrecking the homes and shops of the townsfolk. Is Taj willing to do this, or does he want to change Kos a different way? If he doesn’t want to abide by the current plan, will he die? I would recommend this book to middle grade readers (ages 10 to 14). Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi. Razorbill, 2017. 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!
Saturday Newsletter: September 1, 2018
‘Parker’, by Kate Duplantis, 13, a work in colored pencil, ink and watercolor. A detail of ‘Parker’ is the cover of our September 2018 Science Issue. A Note from William Rubel I am so proud to be able to introduce to you Stone Soup’s Science and Science Fiction themed September issue. As always, to download the full issue and to read all of the contents you have to be a subscriber. Single copies of the print issue can be ordered from our online store. This issue marks the first anniversary of Editor Emma Wood’s first year with Stone Soup, and a continuation of the program of special themed issues that she initiated with her first issue last September, which was poetry. A huge thank you to Emma! The art in this issue is particularly fine. Emma commissioned illustrations for this issue, to complement our Science Fiction contest winners’ work. I’m going to write more about Emma, and our staff, and our plans for Stone Soup this school year in next week’s Newsletter. But, for today, I’d like to keep the focus of the Newsletter on this extraordinary September science issue. ‘Parker’, by Kate Duplantis, is the cover illustration. Look at the detail! This is classic science fiction in visual form. Real science—precise observation of nature—underpins the animal and plant forms. The bark on the trees is at once believably bark-like and exotic. The bird is clearly a bird—but not one living on earth today. Is it a throwback to the age of the dinosaurs, a future mutation, or something real as yet undiscovered? A real tour de force! This is what Emma wrote to introduce the issue: I’m thrilled to finally share the winners of our Science Fiction Contest with you, in this special Science Issue of the magazine. Each story is inventive, strange, suspenseful, and “scientific” in its own way. “Middlenames,” the winning story, imagines a society that assigns you a middle name—which determines your identity for life—at birth. “Young Eyes” explores the dangers of technology, while “Mystical Creatures of Blue Spout Bay” and “Sunk” take on the environment. This issue also features nonfiction writing on scientific topics—from the solar eclipse to organ transplants—as well as three poems that engage with scientific topics and ways of thinking. I hope this issue serves as a reminder that writing and literature don’t happen in vacuum; they aren’t separate from other subjects like algebra, physics, or biology. As you read, I want you to think about your largest, nonliterary passion. How can you engage it in your own writing? As always, send the results of your experiment to Stone Soup! This issue really challenges the boundaries we place on writing. Our own labels of fiction, science fiction, literature, science writing, etc. are conveniences. They are ways of packaging writing. And, of course, when you sit down with a book or a magazine article it is good to know that what you are reading is fiction or nonfiction, as that helps determine how you think about what you are reading. On the other hand, lots of great fiction writing and lots of great nonfiction writing cross genres. For example, while one of the most famous American novels, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851), is clearly a work of fiction about the hunt for a whale, large portions of the book are pure non-fiction. The inspiring French naturalist, Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915) was a great scientist. And even more wonderfully, he was a great writer. Fabre wrote brilliant science about insects, and his texts are often woven through with personal observations. He uses descriptive language that is so elegant, eloquent, evocative, and beautiful that whole pages can transport you into the realm of poetry. And so, when you pick up Emma’s challenge to engage your largest non-literary passion in your writing, I encourage you to think outside the box; think outside the literary categories that you know about. You can write a novel that is also a work on marine science, or describe an ant colony in a way that fully draws us into that world. If you are someone for whom algebra opens up a beautiful world, then Emma is asking you how you might incorporate that algebraic way of seeing into something more literary, and in doing so help the rest of us who cannot see it to understand it and discover something new. So, pick up a pen and start writing! For many of us, the act of writing itself gets ideas flowing. Until next week Contests, submissions, and more There are two weeks left to submit material for two of our current calls for submissions. Recipes for our food issue, and entries for our concrete poetry contest should both be with us by September 15th. As ever, use the Submit button to send your work to us. Next week we will be telling you more about a brand new competition that we have been working on with MacKenzie Press: the Secret Kids contest. For this contest, we are looking for book-length work, and the prizes in several age categories include publication of your own book! Entries are due in January 2019, so you have time to polish your longer form entries. Look out for our more detailed email all about this contest, coming soon. Highlights from the past week online Visit the Stone Soup blog for thought leadership, reviews and more from our young bloggers, all age 13 and younger. There is new material throughout the week, every week. If you have something to say that you think our readers would be interested in, then please submit a sample blog entry. Don’t miss our young blogger and leader in our refugee campaign Sabrina Guo’s latest blog post. This week, Sabrina shares a summary and her reflections on a talk by Tara Abraham, Executive Director of Glamor Magazine’s The Girl Project, “Reflections on the Syrian Refugee Crisis.” Our sports blogger Leo T. Smith makes his predictions for the new NBA season. What do you think
