MaCall, I don’t feel like I’m on a magical island”. Illustrator Zoe Hall, 12 for Sisters by Cameron Manor, 11. Published March/April 2010. A note from William Rubel There are four projects for today, one new one and three that we’ve been reminding you about for a little while: a new Instagram project, a recipe with headnotes for the December issue, a last call for the Concrete Poetry contest, and a look back to summer journals. Instagram #whatsinmybackpack I’d like to encourage all of you to follow our Instagram account and to contribute to it. We have images from our archive and images related to current content, and many of you recently sent us images for our #whereiwrite campaign. Thank you! You will see those entries when you go to go to our Instagram account. We are now starting a new hashtag program. We know that nearly every one of you wears a backpack to and from school. We want to know what’s inside! Please send us photographs of #whatsinmybackpack. There is an entry category for this Instagram project here, on the Stone Soup online submissions page. Whether you include the pack itself in the photograph is up to you, but I think it will make a more interesting photograph if it is included. I also think that however you compose it, you will find your own photograph more interesting as the years pass. It has been more than forty years since I unpacked my seventh-grade pack for the last time. It would be amazing to have a photograph of what had been in it! Recipes: December food issue deadline extended to September 20! Thank you to those of you who have sent in your recipes. We are working through them and will get back to the recipe writers very soon. We also have some really nice writing about food (or related to food), without recipes, thank you! To the rest of you—OK. We get it. This is not a good time to think about holiday cooking. I know it is September, and December and holiday eating seems far away. But, we have deadlines to meet, so we have to think about it now. Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, New Years—December is holiday time in lots of places. That means family visiting time. It is eating time. It is the time of year when nearly every family is in the kitchen, cooking. So. What foods mean something to your family? Favorite holiday dishes—favorite cookies—favorite main dishes—favorite homemade drinks and snacks. Or, maybe it isn’t even a food you like very much, but it is a fixture in your family and so has some good stories surrounding it. Remember: we are not a food magazine, and we are international. Just because the issue is being published in December, it doesn’t have to only contain winter recipes for a cold climate—you can send us anything at all, and it will be online in all the other months of the year too. As I’ve said in previous newsletters and as you can see by looking at last year’s food issue, all recipes must be preceded with a story that talks about the recipe or the food in some way. A great recipe without a great story won’t get published, but something the other way around just might! Concrete Poetry We extended the deadline to midnight, September 15. Poems are coming in—thank you!—so there will not be a further deadline extension. First prize is $50, second prize is $25, and the third prize is $10. I’ve written about this contest in previous Newsletters and you all know the drill. Go to the submissions page, find Concrete Poetry, and click on “more” to read the contest guidelines, or go straight to submit here. Journals! I have not forgotten about the Summer Journals. We have a few in the wings waiting to go online. Are any more of you ready to share yours? Please send me images of a few pages from your journal, along with a passage that you’d like to share. Do this by replaying to this email, or submit to our blog category. I’ll be writing more about journals in another Newsletetter. Until next week What’s behind the paywall? Here is the business news. We at Stone Soup are all extremely pleased with the number and quality of book reviews being sent to us each week. There are new reviews being posted weekly. There are also new blog posts every week. We love the work these Stone Soup writers are doing and feel they are good enough to be folded into the larger Stone Soup literary project. Up to now, access to the book reviews and blogs has been free. And, they are still free today! However, I have just asked our programmer to include them into the Stone Soup paywall so there will be a limit on how many you can read for free. So, non-subscribers—please check out the extraordinary work being done by our reviewers and bloggers. Today, I read the two book reviews—of To Kill a Mockingbird and Beasts Made of Night—posted this week by our young reviewers. They are both interesting reviews—very topical in these turbulent times. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at stonesoup.com! This week, it’s all about books. You’ve read lots of great book reviews by Vandana R over the past few months. This week, she has written a lovely piece about her book collection, and why some of her books mean so much to her. Are you a Jane Austen fan too? And which books are in your backpack (or locker?) Don’t miss Mirembe Mubanda’s topical review of the exciting and thought-provoking Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi. Have you also read this book? Leave a comment and tell Miremebe and us what you thought. And, as William mentioned above, we have Maya Viswanathan’s review of the classic To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. If you haven’t read it yet, be inspired by her review. If you have, leave her a comment on the blog! “MaCall!” I screeched, snatching up my favorite
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Vandana’s Book Collection
Photo by Rebecca Wilson via Flickr. The first book I remember buying from my own money was Finally by Wendy Mass (I recently sent a review of it to Stone Soup, inspired by the Newsletter). I felt grown up carrying the shiny paperback home by myself, and even more importantly, I’d never identified with a character so much. From that moment, Finally and I were best friends, and although the copy became worn and smudged with time, the story never grew old in my eyes. At this moment in time, a few weeks after I began seventh grade, the book that means the most to me is Emma by Jane Austen. I carried it with me in my backpack on the first day of middle school, over a year ago. My new school was giant compared to my elementary school, and I was surrounded by strangers. For the first few weeks, I felt lost and alone. But every time I opened Emma at lunch or between classes, the familiar characters and old-style language seemed to wrap their arms around me and transport me to a place which I knew like the back of my hand. I think of those days with nothing more than vague but fond memory now; but Emma continues to be my all-time favorite book. My book collection consists of books which really mean something to me. It can be something that inspires memories in me, has characters I identify with like I do with no others, or simply strikes me as a book which is second to none. When I check out something from the library which I’m unable to part with after weeks and even months, then I know it belongs in my collection and I usually buy a copy off Amazon or from the bookstore. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the books are also by Jane Austen – upon reflection, the humor and archaic language appealed (and still does appeal) to me more than any other style. I like to keep my locker at school filled with books, so a large percentage of my collection is crammed against the walls of the locker. The rest I keep at home, because all readers know that one can’t have a room without a book collection of some sort inside it.
To Kill A Mockingbird, Reviewed by Maya Viswanathan, 12
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!
