There is a certain joy that comes from a pile of new books waiting to be read, especially going into the new year. Whether they are on the shelf at a library or bookstore or sitting on the shelf at home, a book holds a promise of adventures to come. We are not always only in the mood for one type of book. Reading feeds me in different ways. Sometimes, I want to snuggle up in front of a fire and immerse myself in a novel, while other times I read to learn about a topic (see my previous blog post about this!) It is interesting to look at my bookshelf and see how the books I read when I was younger lead to books that I read now: D’Aulaires Books of Greek Myths leading to the first female translation of The Odyssey, The Collections of Robert Frost leading to A Book of Luminous Things. Here’s what is on my New Year’s booklist: Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire There are some novels that I just want to curl up and read the moment I see it. Egg and Spoon, a book about mistaken identities, economic differences, and fairy tales, made me do this with gusto. My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg Since I saw Sonia Sotomayor speak at the Hill Center, I have been interested in the lives of the Supreme Court Justices–especially the female ones. My Own Words is a collection of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s writings from childhood to present day. This RBG book looked like a perfect mixture of two things that interest me now, writing and the supreme court. Every Falling Star by Sungju Lee With all the news surrounding North Korea, Every Falling Star is the perfect way to get a glimpse of what it is like to live there. Sungju Lee writes about his life in North Korea, from his privileged childhood, into poverty, and finally his escape. Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries by Martha Collins and Kevin Prufer Have you ever wondered what the thought process is for people who are translating poems? How similar are they to the original text? How much the translated version is its own poem? I found myself wondering these things after I read The Book of Luminous Things and saw that almost every poem had “translated by…” written underneath. This collection gathers different translations of poems and a commentary on the translators’ decisions. The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson This is the first female translation of the Odyssey. After reading an article about her and her translation of the Odyssey, I couldn’t help picking it up from the library. I have always been interested in Greek myths starting with D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, and this is the perfect way to grow my interest. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich My history teacher recommended this book for us to discuss together. It is a wonderful memoir that is about Barbara Ehrenreich’s experience living as a minimum wage worker for a year. And the less traditional “books”: New York Times Easiest Crossword Puzzles edited by Will Shortz My grandpa was a genius at crossword puzzles, leaving behind a big legacy to fill. New York Times Easiest Crossword Puzzles was (I have already completed a couple–I couldn’t hold back) the perfect place to start, with “150 very easy puzzles”. They are very cleverly arranged and the perfect level for a beginning crossword puzzler. Poetry Poetry is a beautiful magazine full of modern poetry. It comes out every month and provides a charming collection of poets writings that each have a different perspective on the world.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: January 20, 2018
Who were the mysterious performers whose music was so captivating? Illustrator Stanislav Nedzelskyi, 13, for Behind the Curtain by Dylan J. Sauder, 13. Published January/February 2010. A note from William Rubel Hamilton! Hamilton is the first piece of popular culture that my daughter, 11, has brought into the house. How many hours of Hamilton have I listened to? Stella has memorized about forty-five minutes’ worth, so let me just say, a lot. Hamilton is brilliant. It is a massively complex many-layered work of art. The core of the work is the text. And the text is a poem. It is a poem as I am confident most of you know, is about the “The ten-dollar founding father without a father.” For those of you who read this newsletter who are not American: Alexander Hamilton’s portrait is on our ten dollar bill. Hamilton is in the oldest literary tradition, that of the history poem. The Iliad and the Odyssey by the Greek poet Homer, written about 2500 years ago, is the history poem of all history poems. Hamilton brings the history poem into our own time. The poem is written in the poetic style of hip hop, set to music and performed. Homer’s work was also originally set to music. Here is someone’s idea about how, roughly, the Iliad and the Odyssey would have sounded sung by the blind poet, Homer. The author of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed the opening song at the White House in 2009, when his idea seems to have been that he was writing a hip hop album, not making a Broadway Musical. There is a directness in this performance that I find very moving. I hope you find it direct, and powerful, too. In that first version of what became the opening song of the musical — the song “Alexander Hamilton” — Lin-Manuel Miranda sings all of the parts. In fact, Miranda ended up imagining this first song as sung by many people and so I want you to watch this version, also performed at the White House. I’ve started the clip at around nine minutes. The first nine minutes President Obama is talking. Online, you can find the lyrics to “Alexander Hamilton” published two ways: as a single text the way Lin-Manual Miranda performed at the White House in 2009, and broken up into parts for specific characters to sing, as in the second White House performance. I want you to write a story in the form of a song or songs. Choose something from history or make up the story entirely from your imagination. Lin-Manuel Miranda took years and years to finish his whole play. So, being practical, I’d like you to write one song that tells a story but that is part of larger story that you have in your head. Use any style. It doesn’t have to be hip hop. You may send us your story poem just as words — submit it as a poem — or if you sing it then submit your recording or video in the music section of the submission web page, and also please include with that submission a copy of the words. Until next week! William Dinner in San Francisco? Last week I was asked if I’d like to cook a meal at a restaurant in San Francisco next Saturday, the 27th. Of course, I said, yes! If any of you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and think you might be able to come to the meal — it is a private dinner for forty — click on this link to indicate your interest. The restaurant is on Columbus Avenue, in San Francisco’s “Little Italy.” I’m cooking the meal in the restaurant’s wood fired oven. I wrote a cookbook book in 2002 called The Magic of Fire. The meal is a magic of fire meal — flavors fire-kissed is the meal’s theme. The event starts at 7pm sharp with appetizers around the oven and the barr, followed by a single seating sit-down dinner. I’d love to meet you! From Stone Soup March/April 2004 The Color of Honor By Andrew Lorraine, 13 Illustrated by Noel Lunceford, 10 CHAPTER ONE Byron Jones parked his beat-up, old, black Chevy in the driveway and stared at the house in front of him. All of his hopes and dreams lay before him in this green house with the pale yellow shutters. “This is what I have been working for,” he said to himself, “my own office, my own home.” It was the summer of 1960. Byron was a family doctor. He had been working at a big Philadelphia hospital, when word came that a new doctor was needed in rural Ambler, about twenty-five miles outside the city Old Dr. Carter was tired and sick. He decided to retire and go live with his daughter. The hospital recommended Byron as his replacement and he jumped at the chance. Now, he was finally here, ready to start his own practice. He got out of the car and stretched. He let his eyes wander around the pretty front yard. Neat rows of purple pansies sprouted in a flowerbed near the big, wooden porch. Bright red geraniums bloomed in a pot at the wide front door. There was another pot of geraniums at the bottom of the porch steps and one at the side yard. “Doc Carter must have dabbled in gardening,” again Byron talked to himself. It all looked so homey. His mama would love it. He thought about her and about his sixteen-year-old brother, Keats. Mama loved poetry and had named her boys after her favorite poets, Lord Byron and John Keats. Byron leaned back against the car and let his thoughts wander back to the family he loved so much. Byron had grown up dirt poor. Most of his clothes were hand-me-downs and a couple of sizes too big. They came from the oldest boy of the rich white folks his mama kept house for. Byron never had his own bike, or
Saturday Newsletter: January 13, 2018
Why were they leaving her? Where were they going? Illustrator Angelica Devers, 12, for Face Your Fears by Jem Burch, 12. Published November/December 2015. A note from William Rubel …and first, an apology I’d like to open today’s Newsletter by thanking all of you who have stuck with us in our shift from print-only to monthly digital plus print annual, and through all the travails of our subscription systems over the last 6 months. We are painfully aware that almost everything that could go wrong has gone wrong since the changes of the early Summer. We are also aware that some of you have been having (and are still having) trouble logging in to the website, and that at the same time there have been issues with getting in touch with us due to some really unfortunate errors in the customer service information published. I am speaking with our programmer on Monday. I believe we have thought of a way to simplify the login process, without forcing everyone to go through the whole process again. I extend my deepest apologies to those of you who have been frustrated by difficulties in getting through to our fulfillment house and/or by the login process. I’ll have an update on this next week. Orphans, foundlings and the power of fiction Look at this amazing drawing! This magnificent illustration, one of two made for Face Your Fears, captures the sadness, uncertainty, and confusion of the moment that Katherine and her infant sister were abandoned on the steps of an orphanage by her parents, who told her, “we’ll come back for you…” What strikes me about the illustration by Angelica Devers is the look on the girl’s face.Though clearly a young child, her expression shows her to be an individual in the world and clearly on her own life path — which is what each of us are, whatever our age. Jane Levi, who is one of the people who brings you Stone Soup, lives in London. A couple of years ago, she curated an exhibition at London’s Foundling Museum, which commemorates the Foundling Hospital, a historical charitable institution for abandoned children. Those of you who have read Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather series will know a lot already about these London foundlings! Some of you might also be familiar with the Messiah, a piece of music written by the German-born composer Frideric Handel (1685-1759). Handel was a patron of the Foundling Hospital. One of his gifts to the institution was the copyright to his Messiah, which at that time meant that when a musical group wanted to perform it they had to pay the Foundling Hospital for a copy. Writing orphan stories is tricky because the theme is such a cliché in children’s literature. The children who lived at the London Foundling Hospital, like the children in Jem Burch’s Stone Soup story, were children who were not exactly orphans, as their parents were not dead. The foundlings were given up by their parents, often single mothers, who could not afford to care for them. The core relationship in the story of these foundlings from long ago was the love of mothers that was so strong they broke their own hearts to give up their children to an institution known for its superior care. They gave up their children to give them a chance at a better life than the one they could offer. One of the most powerful exhibits at the Foundling Museum is the display of ‘tokens’ left by parents with their children. These were small objects like buttons, coins and scraps of fabric left by mothers with their babies, that convey their love and hope for the future of their children. I had a neighbor who adopted a boy from El Salvador from a family for whom this child was one mouth too many to feed. The family thought that it would be better for this boy to grow up in America with a new family. One of the powers of fiction writing is that you can use fiction to explore complex problems like this. What does the mother or father who gives up a child feel like? What does the child, grown up, come to think of the decision of their parents? Can you imagine being a parent giving up your child? Can you imagine being a child who has been given up for adoption? There are many ways to write a story. One form of story telling, which was one of the earliest forms of the novel, is the “epistolary” story. This is a story told through letters. The story featured in this week’s Newsletter, Kisses from Cécile is a story about letters. I think using letters as a way of telling at least part of an orphan story could be a way to offer a sense of what characters are feeling in their deepest being. Good news on print On the good news side we have worked out a way to bring back print issues (though not yet a regular print subscription). In next week’s Newsletter I will have a publication date for the January issue. By the March issue we should be able to have individual issues available in print on the first of the publication month. 2018 issues, as well as any back issues we have remaining stock of, will be for sale individually for those who wish to order them in our Stone Soup Store. We have also just received additional copies of the Stone Soup 2017 Annual, as well as the anthologies we sold out of. Keep on creating! I hope you all have made the transition back to school and work happily. For those of you who experienced the fires in Southern California last December and those of you in the Eastern United States and elsewhere experiencing the extreme cold it is probably a good time to put the finishing touches on stories and diary entries. We tend to forget important details as time passes. Of course, any of you living anywhere in the world where there have been extreme events, weather-based or otherwise — please transform the experiences into
