Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists

There are a lot of great books out there. Many of them are terrific because of the inventive plot or the characters. A few contain a masterful message. Krista Kim-Bap by Angela Ahn is both. The main character in the story is, of course, Krista, a girl with Korean heritage who lives in Canada and has never been to Korea. Her one connection to Korea is the food she eats with her family. Jason has been Krista’s best friend for years. They do practically everything together. They’re inseparable. Until the day Krista meets Madison, a popular girl, and suddenly Krista’s friendship with Jason is falling apart. And what’s even worse is that Krista starts acting differently because of this new friendship-namely, dressing very differently than her usual jeans and T-shirt and trying out eye tape to make her eyes look bigger. Another problem is that Krista has to make a school project on her Korean heritage for Heritage Month. She’s not sure how she feels about being the one Korean kid in her school, and she has yet another dilemma; asking her slightly unapproachable grandma to teach her class to make kim-bap, a kind of Korean food. Will Krista learn to appreciate her appearance and heritage? The thing I liked best about Krista Kim-Bap is the message of the story, which is to be yourself and be okay with being who you are. Trying to be somebody else or changing your looks is always going to make you unhappy. Worthwhile friends don’t make you feel bad about being your authentic self. Another one of the things I liked was the humor and Krista’s amusing comments on things everyone has probably wondered about. Krista Kim-Bap is a short but powerful story about true friendship and self-acceptance. I would advise you to get your hands on it as soon as possible! Krista Kim-Bap by Angela Ahn. Second Story Press, 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!

“Summer is over.” These are the first words of the haunting book Almost Autumn. But it’s not just summer that’s over. It’s life. Jewish lives. Almost Autumn takes place in 1942 Norway. Germany is in control, and they are beginning to round up all the Jews of the city. This is bad for the main character, Ilse Stern, and her family, who are all Jewish. It’s bad for Ilse’s friend, Hermann Rod, who’s working in the resistance. It’s bad for all of Norway. It’s bad for all of the world. I’ve always been interested in World War II, partly because I’m half Jewish. My ancestors died in the Holocaust. It doesn’t keep me from reading all about these horrible events, though. It’s gruesome, but it’s also interesting. Intriguing. I was especially drawn to the Jewish characters in this book. There were three main ones: Ilse, her father, Isak, and her sister, Sonja. Isak and Sonja are both taken to a concentration camp midway through the book, which was actually something I hadn’t seen a lot before. Most Holocaust books I’ve read were about the resistance or Jews hiding from the Nazis. Very few ventured into what it was like to be in a concentration camp. An interesting thing about Almost Autumn is that it was originally written in Norwegian, but translated into English. This makes the language even more strange and beautiful, but it’s not choppy or hard to understand. I actually didn’t find out that it was a translation until after I’d read the book, and it totally surprised me. One of my favorite things about this book was that it switched perspectives. There was Ilse’s perspective, that of a Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis; Hermann’s perspective, that of a boy empowered to resist; Sonja’s perspective, that of a girl holding her whole family together in the worst of times; Isak’s perspective, that of a man who could not save his loved ones. And, my personal favorite: the perspective of the Sterns’ neighbor, Ole Rustad, who is wracked with guilt over his work as a cab driver for the Nazis. Another thing was the beautiful description. Everything is metaphorical, representing something deeper. The language is beautiful and poetic. Marianne Kaurin has crafted a haunting and lovely book, telling five different closely entwined stories that perfectly blend together to create the work of art that is Almost Autumn. In conclusion, this book is one of the best I’ve ever read. It dives deep into many perspectives of the Holocaust, exploring each story with hauntingly beautiful language. If you are interested in the Holocaust and World War II, like me, this is the book for you. Almost Autumn by Marianne Kourin, translated by Rosie Hedger. Arthur A. Levine Books, 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!