Image by Eric Holsinger via Creative Commons The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (BOTW) video game recently came out and already people are falling in love with it. I play it on the Nintendo Switch. First, let’s talk about the things that make it AMAZING!!. BOTW is a mega open world game, I’m not even joking. The map is 120x bigger than a regular U.S map, making it a long game that will leave you exploring for hours. You are Link and your goal is to defeat Ganon (he is the bad guy) and rescue the beautiful Princess Zelda. There are a variety of things that Link can collect to help him on his adventure. For example, Korok seeds. They expand your inventory. The bad news is once you collect all 900, you get Hestu’s gift which is poop! The graphics are also brilliant– not only are the natural surroundings lush and green, but the characters like the Lynel (centaur), Hinox (cyclops) and the Molduga (giant sand fish) look scary and powerful. BOTW is also unique compared to a lot of other open-world games because you can play the game in any order – in other words you play the story line starting at the beginning, the middle, or the end. For instance you can just fight Ganon, the villain, at the beginning of the game! (But I wouldn’t do that if I were you because you would die in seconds!). It also features tons of tricky challenges that make the game hard to complete in one sitting. If you do truly want to complete the game, you’ll be surprised by how long it will take you. It took me 30-40 days to complete the main storyline!!! Now let’s talk about the game’s faults. First the bosses. The bosses are challenging don’t get me wrong, but they are predictable. Each one is just a different form of Ganon. For example, one of the bosses is called Windblight Ganon and he does moves that are “windlike”. The same goes for Waterblight Ganon, Thunderblight Ganon, and Fireblight Ganon. You get the picture? Another problem is that the characters and their dialogue sometimes don’t make any sense. Like for instance, the characters who die come back as memories to Link. One of those memories is called Subdued Ceremony. In that memory the characters talk unlike normal people using fancy words and sentences. But all in all BOTW is a game that is age-appropriate for most children. There’s no blood or gore when fighting monsters or enemies, though there is combat. BOTW won The Game Of The Year in 2017 and I can see why. It is a challenging and cool mega-puzzle game packed with action and adventure at every turn. So go out and tell your mom or dad, “ I want this game right now!” Have fun!
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: March 24, 2018
He licked my fingers and I felt that the model dog didn’t matter to me anymore Illustrator Garrett Landon, 11, for Little Pal by Nikki Morse, 12, in Stone Soup Magazine July/August 2000. A note from William Rubel Jet lag! Traveling is great, but there are side effects! I got back from warm Israel via freezing London (literally) to a rainy week in Northern California. Next week, I’m going to Taiwan for my daughter’s Spring break. So the next Newsletter will be produced from Taipei. Being honest, as I am often working at the last minute, Taipei is actually a great place to be writing the Newsletter as we post it Saturday morning California time which is Sunday in Taiwan. All of you writers will understand that means more time to procrastinate! Science Fiction Contest reminder Speaking of procrastinating, the deadline for submitting a story to our science fiction contest is 11:59 pm on April 1, Pacific Coast Time. Winners receive Amazon gift certificates of $80 (first place), $40 (second place), $20 (third place), and $10 (fourth place). The prize-winners will be published either in the magazine or on the website. The authors of highly commended stories that do not win prizes will also be acknowledged. Upload your submission the usual way — click on the submission link, below. Celebrating our Young Bloggers, and a joint adult/kid nature-writing challenge I am very pleased with how our Young Bloggers project is going. Some really interesting writing has been posted. If you are Stone Soup writing age, which is age 13 and under, and if the Young Blogger posts inspire you, then go to the submissions button and upload an example of what you’d like to blog about. If our editor, Emma Wood likes it, then she will make you a Stone Soup blogger. All subjects welcome. The recent post I am featuring today is “Rain” by Lukas Cooke. I think this is an utterly brilliant piece of writing. It is very difficult describing what you see and experience. Storms are particularly difficult to evoke with words. Lukas does an incredible job describing a rain storm, first from observing it inside his house, and then from outside where he is standing in the rain. I’d like to share this passage with you: “The wind seemed to be whistling a tune, accompanied by the soft percussion of rain hitting the ground and splashing in puddles. Dancing to that tune were the trees, swaying back and forth, rejoicing in the water that so eagerly rushed down to quench their thirst. The frogs too, could be heard from inside the house, their chorus befitting the scene. And the frogs too, were rejoicing in the long–needed downpour.” I am a writer and all I can say is, wow! The wind whistles, the trees dance, the frogs rejoice. This passage demonstrates Lukas’ power as a writer as he takes common ideas–the whistling wind, the dancing trees, and the chorus of frogs–and fleshes them out in a dynamic prose that has emotional depth, grace, and rhythm. Notice how he injects emotions and feelings through the core words and ideas he uses to describe the scene. He speaks of the trees “rejoicing in the water that so eagerly rushed down to quench their thirst.” Lukas’ tree is intensely alive, as is the water that rushes down to it. I find this idea of a dancing tree rejoicing in the rain to be powerfully evocative. One of the most memorable storm scenes in English literature is in a short story, Typhoon, by the great Polish-British writer, Joseph Conrad (1857-1924). While Conrad tackled describing a hurricane from the vantage point of a boat in peril on the high seas, Lukas has tackled something that I think may be even more difficult. He describes a storm that is within our experience. Everyone reading his story, whether conscious of doing so or not, will be comparing Lukas’ description of the rain with their own experiences. We know exactly what a storm such as the one Lukas describes is like. A false step would stick out. What I want you to do this weekend, and I am speaking here to all of you reading the Newsletter this week, whether you are still a student or whether you are a parent or grandparent, is to join Lukas in describing the weather that is right outside your door. I want you to do it this weekend. The challenge is to make something of whatever the day is like when you start writing. If you are together (kids and grownups) then do this together. When you read Lukas’ complete text you will see that he is clearly thinking deeply about how to say what he wants to say. You can see he worked hard to express the full depth and complexity of his experience. If you feel you are struggling to say what you want to say, then that is good. On your first couple of drafts please let yourself go. Don’t censor what you are writing. Don’t edit yourself. The first words that you write to describe the day may not turn out to be the best words to use. That doesn’t matter. Get the ideas down, make a word sketch, and then later, perfect it. If you end up really liking what you have written, and if you think that you make your readers feel and see the moment of the day you are describing (and you are 13 or under), then please submit it to Stone Soup. You may also send what you have written to me just by replying to the Newsletter. And if you are a kid and actually managed to get an adult to write along with you, then email your joint pieces to me as well. One of our advisors once suggested that we publish work by parents and grandparents, so lets see what comes of this idea. Once I have a few paired works by kids and adults, I’ll have a better idea of what to do with them. And, if you are an adult Newsletter reader but without kids to work with–well, take up the challenge, anyway. What do you see out the window? Until next week,
The Scarlet Letter, Auggie Pullman, Middle School and the Meaning of Acceptance
Illustration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ (James R. Osgood and Company, 1878), courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org Have you ever met someone who seemed to accept everyone just as they are? Have you ever felt that way yourself? When I read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I found this acceptance in the main character, Hester Prynne. The Scarlet Letter is about a Puritan woman named Hester Prynne who commits adultery and is scorned and ousted by her society. The book follows Hester’s life and the community around her, which includes her “illegitimate” daughter Pearl; her legal husband, Roger Chillingworth; the father of Pearl, who happens to be the local Puritan minister, Arthur Dimmesdale; and the local Puritan community. Hawthorne paints the Puritan community to highlight how extremely judgmental it was. When the community finds out about Hester’s “crime”, they kick her out and scorn her and her daughter’s existence. However, Hester accepts her fate and continues to treat her community with respect. She accepts the scarlet “A” that her community required her to wear to signify her adultery, and turns it into something beautiful, both literally through her embroidery and figuratively through her acceptance of her past behavior. Hester exudes acceptance, both in her fate and the way that she treats the people around her–presenting a model that is especially relevant today when many tend toward othering–the separation of yourself from a certain group of people and calling them different. Acceptance is particularly significant in my life as a middle schooler because in middle school children tend to stop accepting people as much and start judging who they are and what they want to be. I realize that I become judgmental when I see people on their phones constantly. Because my family values being present in the moment and trying not to focus on phones and computers, when I see someone on their phone my instinct causes me to judge them. I have to resist this reaction because it creates distance between myself and other people and focuses on the negative. When I look past this difference, I can focus on getting to know them as an individual. Everyone knows that you should accept people who are different and just accept people in general. Hester’s acceptance goes beyond that. She puts aside her community’s judgement and approaches them with open arms and forgiveness. August Pullman in Wonder by R. J. Palacio, also expresses this bottomless kindness. Mr. Tushman, August’s principal, sums up this world view: “Always be a little kinder than necessary.” In middle school, perhaps we need to not only focus on accepting others who are different from us but also forgiving those who judge us. Are there ways that you are judged by your peers? Are there ways you convince yourself to accept others in the face of feeling judgmental? Are there times you have reached across perceived differences and have connected with someone you didn’t expect to? I’d love to hear from you–please leave a comment below.
