A graphic novel approach to a current issue, a collaboration between two friends. Click through to read the complete comic strip Hidden in Plain Sight (1) Hidden in Plain Sight (2) Hidden in Plain Sight (3) Hidden in Plain Sight (4) Hidden in Plain Sight (5) Transcript Page 1: Hidden in Plain Sight Written by: Maia Hodgin & Illustrated by: Juna Hume-Clark What is Racism? “First of all, when you ask someone what racism is, they are probably going to say something like ‘racism is one person being mean or cruel to a POC.*'” *Person of Color Page 2: When actually those are just the most obvious forms of racism. Most people can only agree that this type of racism is not right. But – let’s think of that type of racism as overt – obvious – the tip of the iceberg. “But ignoring your problems won’t help either.” “Eh, not true, I ignored all 7 of these bees around me and all of them died after stinging me!” Some examples of overt racism are: racial slurs, swastikas, KKK, Neo-Nazis But covert – not obvious racism – is at the bottom of the iceberg; “I don’t see color,” “Make America Great Again,” Euro-Centric School curriculum, Denial of White Privilege These kinds of racism are everywhere, like the other day at school… Page 3: Har, har, har, snort, hee, hee Why can’t they just shut up? “Young men, do I have to call your parents, or will you be quiet?!?” “No, miss.” What is that about? Why did the teacher reprimand them instead of the ones making all the noise? Should I say something? “Uh, Maia?” I thought that the teacher reprimanded these two students of color because she expected them to be noisy even when they weren’t. Page 4: … And it is so important to call out, but I didn’t, and I really wish I did. Here is some of the possible answers if I had said something: The Positive way: Teacher: “Thank you for pointing that out, I will work on my snap judgements.” The Negative way: Teacher: “No, of course not! I don’t see color! They were just louder.” (Here she is denying that she has an unconscious bias) Page 5: “To sum it all up, race isn’t the problem, racism is. And the reason it’s still around is because well-meaning white people contribute to it thinking they are doing the right thing or not doing anything at all.” “An example is voting for our current president, lots of well-meaning white people did it, and they may never in their life physically hurt a person of color, but voting for him means that they are okay with other people doing it.” An example: The Washington Redskins logo* *We will not reproduce this racist image Thank you for reading this comic and we hope you think about these concepts. About the illustrator: Juna H-C : Going into 8th grade, Juna Hume Clark, age 12, is a passionate artist and activist.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Reviewed by Kaya Simcoe, 13
Reviewing Harry Potter is kind of like reviewing Taco Bell or vanilla ice cream. Most everyone has read it, but sometimes just knowing that a book is famous or has won awards won’t make you read it, especially if you are a careful reader, like me. Yes, Harry Potter is scary. And it is also inspirational, amazing, spellbinding, and deeply profound. I had never read it on my own, because I knew it has some very scary moments (and it does). Scary books just aren’t worth it to me. But, one day my grandma persuaded me to read one chapter on the phone. Just one chapter. How hard could it be? HARD! But not the book. Needing to put the book down! From the first page I was hooked. I never knew Harry Potter was funny, but I think it’s hilarious. The characters are strong, well thought out, and multi-dimensional. They are real to me, and that’s one of the magical things about Harry Potter. (“Of course it’s happening inside your head!” Dumbledore exclaims in book seven, “But why on Earth should that mean it’s not real?”) I love Hermione, one of Harry’s best friends, immensely. She is strong, independent and brave, but I really appreciate that author J.K. Rowling sometimes lets her break or be real. “We could have been killed!” Hermione says in book one, “Or worse, expelled.” By book seven though, “We’re coming with you. That was decided months ago— years really.” Though not well known, that is one of my favorite Hermione quotes. I think J.K. Rowling is very brave. As a writer myself, I know how hard it is to put your characters in difficult situations, or make bad things happen to them. You love your characters like friends (at least, I do) and often you can tell something about the author by what he or she makes happen to theirs. Harry Potter IS sad, and scary, but it revolves around love. “You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!” Dumbledore tells Harry in book six. These books have many layers, which makes it interesting for me to read, and you get to decide if it’s worth it to you to see them all. I see the books differently now at thirteen, rather than eight. I really value the beautiful and dynamic characters J.K. Rowling adds to her books. The realness of it all is one of the reasons that I love Harry Potter. No, you probably can’t make someone’s wand shoot out of their hands when you yell “expelliarmus!” in this world, and mail is delivered by postman, not owl. But you CAN stand up, fight back, break down, laugh, cry, and LOVE each other in this world. This is the kind of magic we can all perform. We all have this magic inside of us. Will we use it? Do we even know it’s there?I love Harry Potter because it is it’s own world. I am a part of it every time I open a thoroughly well loved book, where dragons exist and broomsticks can fly. My collection of the hardcover books have a million pages folded down, and every funny scenario is highlighted. Some may argue that this isn’t the way to treat good books—but I think, it’s the best way. Harry Potter inspires me to enjoy smarts, love, and use MY wizard powers. What are they? How will they help? What are YOUR wizard powers? Maybe you’ll find some you didn’t know were there… when you read my favorite book. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. Arthur A. Levine Books, Reissue 2018. 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: July 21, 2018
Freedom, that’s what pushed out of me on that day Illustrator Sofia deGraff-Ford, 13 for Me, Myself, and My Personality by Simon Gonzalez, 11. Published March/April 2006. A note from William Rubel I am back from Kenya! Wow! It is very difficult to explain what a totally different place I have been. Before I tell one story from my trip, about commissioning a house for $80, I’d like first to call your attention to the incredibly dynamic illustration of a roller coaster rider that my colleague, Jane Levi, has found for you, then remind you about a project I wrote about earlier in the Summer, and mention some Stone Soup news. To the roller coaster! What a great picture! What an evocative image! The tousled hair! You feel the lead boy’s feeling of excitement, the adrenaline rush that makes the roller coaster so addictive to some riders. As for me—I live in Santa Cruz, California, home to the Giant Dipper. It was built in 1924, making it one of the oldest roller coasters in the world, and one of the few remaining wooden roller coasters still in operation. Is it fun? Yes, it is. I won’t say I go on it often, but I will say that the memory of the creaky climb up to the top of the Giant Dipper and then the rush of the whoosh down the steep slope stays with you. It is terrifying and exhilarating—just the feeling memorialized in Sofia deGraff-Ford’s fabulous drawing published in Stone Soup twelve years ago, to illustrate Simon Gonzales’ evocative piece of short short fiction (below). Summer Journals Just before leaving for Kenya I wrote to you about keeping a Summer journal. How many of you have? I know, fewer of us are keeping a journal than I have fingers on my right hand. Which includes me! I started out good and strong, made my first entry in the San Francisco airport, my heart full of good intentions. But then… However, I am delighted to say that there is one reader who has set all of us a good example: ten-year-old Abhi Sukhdial has sent us a couple of pages from his summer journal of his family trip to visit his grandparents in India. We will post his journal extract on our blog next week, so do look out for Abhi’s great word-picture and drawings, and let it inspire your own efforts. There is plenty of summer left for journalling! I’m going to get back to journal writing myself in a couple of weeks’ time. For now, whatever your age, if you are reading this Newsletter, create something this weekend that memorializes this weekend—a photograph, a drawing, a poem, a story. Get that journal started. No excuses—just do it! Over the next few weeks I will share a few photographs from my trip. Along with your journals, I’d like some of you to share with Stone Soup photographs from trips you have made this summer, too. Stone Soup for Schools – Chromebooks and iPads A couple of orders have just come in from schools subscribing to Stone Soup for Chromebook and iPads. This kind of full school subscription, that lets every student and teacher use Stone Soup on their device in school, is our bread and butter. This is the way we reach the greatest number of students, and it provides us with the income that lets us keep doing what we do through the Children’s Art Foundation. So, we’d like to say a huge thank you to all the schools who subscribe to Stone Soup. If you are a teacher or a parent at a school that doesn’t yet have full access to Stone Soup, please lobby your school to subscribe to Stone Soup for Chromebooks and iPads, or to add Stone Soup to the list of resource options your Charter School offers to parents. It’s easy to give the option of Stone Soup access to every student in your school. Schools subscriptions are on sale in our online store. And if you need any extra support from us to make it happen, just write to me by replying to this newsletter, or drop Sarah Ainsworth a line via education@stonesoup.com. Kenya It is difficult explaining how different where I go in Kenya is from where many of Stone Soup’s readers tend to live. This photo gives you a little bit of an idea. The woman on the left is called England. She is the sister of my friend Haile with whom I stay. The other three women are England’s friends. They are all from the Samburu tribe. If you look at a map you may be able to find the town of Wamba which is about an hour-and-a-half’s walk from where I stay by the Lengusaka River. Lengusaka is just North of the equator on a high plateau, so the days and nights are about equal in length, and it neither gets super hot nor super cold. Together, England and her friends help people out by building houses. I was tired of sleeping in a tent and so I asked Halie whether it would be possible to build a small house so my daughter and I could sleep on a mattress up off the ground. Haile said, yes! No problem! My sister builds houses! So, for $80, England and her friends built me a small house out of branches and mud. The only tools they used were a machete for cutting the wood, a shovel for digging the clay and a bucket to carry the water for mixing the clay. The house has two rooms, a bedroom and a kitchen/sitting room. It is small, but in much of the world people live in very small houses. You can see the house under construction just behind the women—the roof isn’t on yet. The line of vertical sticks are the basis of the walls. Behind the house you see sand. That is the Lengusaka River, a seasonal river which in
