This story is about promises kept, selflessness, and friendship. It’s about Ivan keeping his promise to his friend, Stella, and trying to get Ruby to a better place. Ivan is a silverback gorilla. For twenty-seven years, Ivan has lived in the mall. Every day, Ivan is in his domain watching the people outside as they go about their lives. Ivan hardly ever thinks about his old life when he was living in the jungle. Instead, he watches television, draws, and paints. Ivan’s life is not sad. Sometimes he’s happy, especially when he’s painting. But Ivan doesn’t seem to realize what he doesn’t have. He doesn’t realize that his cage is small and he insists on calling it a domain and not a cage. There’s a part where Ivan says “I know what most humans think. They think gorillas don’t have imaginations. They think we don’t remember our pasts or ponder our futures. Come to think of it, I suppose they have a point. Mostly I think about what is, not what could be.” This suggests that Ivan might not have any hope. I think it’s more that Ivan doesn’t hope for anything because he doesn’t know what to hope for. So when Stella tells him about a zoo, a place where she says humans try to make amends to the animals, he begins to have something to hope for. Ivan’s best friends are Stella and Bob. Stella is an older, wise elephant who remembers much of her old life in the jungle, and knows many stories. Stella and Ivan have a very strong friendship that compels Ivan to make a special promise to her. His other friend, Bob, is a crafty stray dog who stays at the mall, but doesn’t want an actual home. Bob’s would rather find his own food than be fed by someone else. At one point in the story, when he is asked why he doesn’t want a home, he answers, “Everywhere is my home, I am a wild beast, my friend: untamed and undaunted.” The other main character is Ruby. Ruby comes into the story when business at the mall slows down, and fewer people come to see the animals. Mack decides to get a small baby elephant (Ruby) for the circus. Ruby is young and naïve and asks lots of questions. When Ivan sees her in her small cage, and when he sees how Mack makes her practice her circus routine even when she’s very tired, Ivan decides he must make some changes. The story is narrated by Ivan. But as Ivan says, gorillas don’t waste words. I think the author did a great job incorporating that concept – short sentences and descriptions without wasting words – into the way the book was written, but without making the story too simple. This is a wonderful story for anyone ages 8-13. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. Harper Collins, 2012. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? If so, comment below!
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Gun Control: Why We Need It
Gun control is one of the most hotly debated topics today. There are several reasons why it is needed today. According to the Department of Justice, between 1994 and 2014 background checks have blocked 3 million gun sales to prohibited people. Imagine how much death rates would plummet if we locked down on gun control, and think of all the lives that could be saved by this simple institution.I am fighting for revision of the Second Amendment for several reasons, some of which are accidents, death and violence, and crime rates. Guns cause numerous accidents each year, and anyone can be a victim. According to the Injury Prevention and Control, between 1999 and 2013, 9,983 unintentional deaths have occurred because of gun accidents. This demonstrates that each year a great number of people die as a result of a this. In addition, The US General Accounting Office stated that by enacting gun control laws such as mandatory safety features would reduce the number of accidental deaths, and estimated that 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks. This shows that by taking simple safety precautions, the number of deaths can be decreased by a great number! Deaths and violence is a growing problem in our country. The FBI discovered that in 2013, 1,962 people died from a gun in arguments over matters such as money. This illustrates that presence of a gun makes a conflict more likely to become violent and that by locking down on gun control, fewer deaths will occur every year. CDC Data and Statistics proved that gun control will lead to fewer suicides because between 1999 and 2013 there were 270,237 firearm suicides in the United States. A 2014 study published by the International Review of Law and Economics, when the numbers of gun ownership went down in the United States, the overall suicide rates went down as well. This is just one of the many reasons why most guns should be prohibited. More evidence from Michael Planty and Jennifer Truman from Bureau of Justice Statistics illustrates guns are rarely used in self-defense. The facts are: of the 29,618,300 violent crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, 0.79% of victims protected themselves with the use of a firearm. If you are really trying to protect yourself and your family, in the event of an emergency when you need the use of a firearm, you would have to have multiple firearms in the house to reach one when you need it. Furthermore, you would need to have the firearm in a place that is not hard reach. This means that you are more likely to have accidental deaths to really have the use of a firearm for self-defense. Crime rates are becoming an increasing problem. According to research done by ProCon, the presence of more guns can actually serve as a stimulus to burglary and theft. By omitting the presence of guns, crime rates will go down which is beneficial to the safety our county. We need gun control for several other reasons, as demonstrated by the American Journal of Public Health, the presence of a gun in a domestic violence increases the risk of a woman being killed five times. Imagine if gun control was put into action, and think of all the lives that would be saved. The National Crime Victimization Survey found that 467,321 persons were victims of a crime committed with a firearm in 2011. As well, seven children and teens are killed a day by a gun in the United States. One child is worth all the guns in the world. We clearly need gun control for reasons such as accidents, death and violence, and crime rates. We did not fight for a free country just to be victims of gun violence. “The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on Earth.” – Che Guevara Note: We also published a Special Feature on the blog of other submissions related to Gun Violence. Check them out here.
Saturday Newsletter: May 19, 2018
With each round of the pedals I felt more confident that this was the right thing to do Illustrator Sofia deGraff-Ford, 13 for Friends Forever? by Michael Scognamiglio,13 Published September/October 2006. A note from William Rubel In the last two months I have been to Taipei, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Mount Vernon, Virginia! Whew! As I write this at home on a lovely California spring afternoon, the sky blue, the Pacific ocean with its cloud bank hanging on the horizon just a few minutes away, this in-your-face portrait of a bike rider makes me want to jump up from my desk, put on my helmet and head out the door! At least for me, Sofia deGraff-Ford has done a fabulous job evoking the feeling of riding a bike. I think that evoking feelings is one function of art. If any Newsletter readers care to go on a bike ride (or feel the energy of another outdoor activity) this weekend, and then turn the experience into art, go for it. I am sure our Editor, Emma Wood, will be interested in seeing what you come up with. Flash Fiction Contest: Reminder! The deadline for our Flash Fiction Contest is midnight, June 15. Flash fiction is the art of the short-short story. Or, perhaps better put as the short-short-short-impossibly-and-yet-somehow-doable short story. How short? Three hundred words short! I’ll be honest. When Emma emailed me that she wanted us to have a contest for flash fiction I had no idea what she had in mind. So, I did what I am sure most of you do: I looked up flash fiction in the Wikipedia. The term means ultra short fiction. There isn’t a precisely defined word count, but the upper limit seems to be about 1000 words. Emma has structured our contest to have a limit of 300 words. Within that limit, your story must be complete. One of the most famous writers of all time is the ancient Greek writer, Aesop. He lived from 620 BCE to 546 BCE, more than 2500 years ago. He is famous for his fables. The English translation of his fable about the mouse who helps the lion is just 167 words. Here is an index to all of the Aesop fables. Check them out. Aesop’s flash fiction is some of the most famous writing there has ever been. To still be read after 2500 years! That is something. My father did a lot of writing over the last twenty years of his life. He wrote several volumes of his memoirs. A couple of authors I had read in my twenties who wrote (what I now know is) flash fiction had really impressed me with the power of the short-short form. I’d read some of my father’s stories and I’d say, “Dad, these stories are great. But, Dad, these two paragraphs here are brilliant! They tell your whole story.” But, unlike Aesop, he couldn’t bear to give up all those words he’d worked so hard to bring together! But, we think maybe some of you can! Please go to the Flash Fiction contest page and read Emma’s guidelines and suggestions. If you don’t feel instantly inspired then perhaps try going through stories you have already written looking for parts that could be extracted and polished into a tiny jewel. I have one last piece of advice. This is based on my own experience as a writer. When your work is finished, but before you send it in to our contest, read it aloud to yourself. Listen to what you have written. This will enable you to catch tiny errors, like duplicate words that you might not have potted when reading it. And, more importantly, you will hear whether the piece sounds perfect to your ear. Make minor changes, if needed, and then send it in. Good Luck! Creative responses to current events One last thing. As I think most of you know there was another school shooting on Friday. This time, in a small town in Texas. Emma has recently received a few pieces that talk about school shootings, and we thought this would be a good time to share them with our readers in a blog post. You can read our special feature, Kids React to Gun Violence, at our website. If any of you reading the Newsletter who are age 13 and under have something you want to say about the subject of school shootings in America, then please send it to us. There are links for submitting stories, poems, and art on the submissions page. If you have written nonfiction or something that doesn’t seem to fit in a category you see there, then please upload them to the blog category. We hope you are all getting prepared for a creative Summer. Until next week This week on the Stone Soup Blog Don’t miss our Special Feature: Kids React to Gun Violence, with three newly published pieces of work: ‘There is a lockdown on October 23, 2015’ by Aidan McClure, 7 ‘Lullaby’ by Rebecca Beaver, 13 ‘Seventeen Graves’ by Kate Kuan, 11Also new this week, a thought-provoking feature on another important topic: Be Aware of Global Warming, by Antara And finally, this weekend seems like a good time to revisit Lucy Regnier Kline’s piece from March 2018, 5 Ways Children Can Make a Difference From Stone Soup September/October 2006 Friends Forever? By Michael Scognamiglio,13 Illustrated by Sofia deGraff-Ford, 13 “Wheeee!” We must have been going fifty, maybe sixty miles per hour in his new Whaler speedboat, and I loved every minute of it. Janet, lying down in the bow to perfect her supermodel tan, gripped onto the handrails at this sudden shift of speed. I laughed next to Jesse, my six-foot-one, fifteen-year-old friend from two houses down. His sandy-blond hair was erupting from his worn Boston Red Sox cap that looked like it went through just as much abuse as the team itself. His emerald eyes were shielded by a brand new, gleaming pair of black Oakleys so as to impress the ladies. I on
