Laurie Halse Anderson’s historical novel Fever 1793 takes place in Philadelphia during the Yellow Fever epidemic. Nearly 5,000 people died from yellow fever, and those who could afford to leave town fled to safety. Like the recent global COVID-19 epidemic, chaos reigned, and majority groups started accusing minorities and immigrants for spreading the sickness. Yellow fever struck fear in the hearts of the people in Philadelphia as everyone was petrified of catching the fatal disease. Oftentimes, sick people were denied entry into hospitals, homes, and towns. The infected were left to fend for themselves. Matilda Cook tells the story of a 14-year-old girl who lives with her widowed mother and grandfather. Matilda’s mother owns and operates a coffeehouse with only the help of her cook, Eliza. Eliza is a free African American woman who is part of the Free African Society, a group of people who help with taking care of the sick. Matilda’s grandfather, a Revolutionary War veteran, takes on her father’s role and brings humor and color to the story. Matilda is a strong female character who is lovable, smart, and caring. Teens, especially girls, will relate to Matilda as she expresses her independence from her mother on her way to adulthood. She grows and matures from a lazy kid to an independent and hardworking teen. Hints of romance are dropped along the way, but the partnership is not the main point. Matilda is a very dramatic character who must change her personality if she wants to survive. The separation of social classes presents another challenge that Matilda faces in addition to death. As the deadly plague spreads throughout the town, only the rich can afford to leave, while the less fortunate must stay. Matilda faces many dire situations and problems that could potentially end her life. While reading this book, I felt Anderson wanted to inform readers about yellow fever. She did an excellent job! She filled the book with information. Before reading Fever 1793, I knew nothing about yellow fever. I did not even know that Pennsylvania had a pandemic. When reading this book, readers will learn the details about the role African Americans played during the Yellow Fever epidemic, the strange medical practices that “treated” patients, and the controversy that surrounded doctors at the time. Although Fever 1793 is a great book, there are other historical fiction books that I would recommend more. The plot did not fully engage me at all times, and the author had not developed strong enough characters to make me have to keep turning the pages. The plot was predictable, and the suspense was not emphasized enough so it was not always a page turner. All things considered, it was one of the easiest historical novels that I have read. Not only does this book follow a chronological order, which is easy to follow and understand, it also did not leave out any key elements. Everything that I needed and wanted to know is conveyed in the book. The only thing I would do differently, if I was the author, is fully develop the minor characters. When a character goes through something bad or unfortunate, I wanted to feel empathy for that character but instead, I did not care about them. Generally speaking, Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson is good, but not a must read book. If you are looking for an easy historical novel to read that is interesting and relatable, this is the perfect book for you. If you like this genre, then what are you waiting for? Stop staring at your screen and start reading! Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2002. Buy the book here and help support Stone Soup in the process!
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Saturday Newsletter: September 30, 2023
Raindrops, or Sharpie Doodles? (Canon Rebel) by Madeline Male, 14; published in the September/October issue of Stone Soup A note from Tayleigh Greene Hello, and happy Saturday! This week, I’ve been reflecting on my creative process, and creative processes in general. I never know exactly when I’ll get paid a visit by the muses. I find myself doing a lot of creative work that doesn’t, well, work. I can draw or paint or write or design for hours without finishing a single thing that I like, and then suddenly, things will click. I’m discovering that creating the “bad” art is an integral step in my process of creating something “good.” Sometimes, this can be frustrating—like when I’m on deadline. Other times, it can be really liberating to simply enjoy the process on the way to the product. This week, I hope you consider taking some time to create for the simple sake of creating. Engage in any art form—writing, painting, knitting, dancing, the list goes on and on! Try not to think about how it looks, but how it feels. (Of course, if you do like what you make, we welcome you to submit your work to Stone Soup.) Now for Stone Soup news: today is the very last day of our back-to-school sale. Use code BACK2SCHOOL30 at checkout for 30% off an annual print + digital subscription. Today is also the last day to subscribe and still receive the September/October issue. From Leticia Cheng’s gorgeous Set Sail by Moonlight that graces the cover, to Madeline Male’s Raindrops, or Sharpie Doodles? featured above, to Naaman Garcia’s hilarious short story “The Cheese Tree,” this issue is not to be missed. Until next time, From Stone Soup September/October 2023 The Cheese Tree by Naaman Garcia, 8 One day, there was a guy named Bob. He was a farmer. He thought he made decent money, until the bills hit him real good in the face. While walking on Dry Creek, which was his favorite place to go, he stumbled upon a seed. It looked strange. It was riddled with holes. He looked at the seed long and hard. It looked like cheese. He said to himself, “I am going to study this.” Bob boosted out like a rocket back to his farm. He rushed to his computer, his shoes squeaking like a mouse. Looking online, the farmer found no data on the seed. He decided to use his farmer instincts. He rushed to the kitchen, opened the cabinet door, and pulled out his music box and a cup. Bob wound up the music box, and out played the familiar tune: Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down . . . He poured himself a cup of coffee and drank it silently while he listened to the music box. When the song ended, he grabbed the seed and barged through the door. Bob planted the seed. Click here to find out what happens next… Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498.
ROBOMIND Ep. 1: I’ll Make an Engineer Out of You By Misha Ahmed, 11
ROBOMIND is a new podcast dedicated to robotics. Listen to the first episode here! https://stonesoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Ill_Make_an_Engineer_Out_of_You-1.m4a Transcript: Hello, my name is Misha Ahmed, and I am your host of this podcast series called ROBOMIND. I know you may be wondering, what does ROBOMIND mean? ROBOMIND is combination of two things: robotics and mind. I love robotics, and I believe that it shapes how you think and it shapes your mind. That is why I called my podcast ROBOMIND. Now a little bit about me! My name is Misha, and I’m 11 years old. I love robotics and my nickname is Mushu, which brings me to our episodes name. I know you may be wondering, “I’ll Make an Engineer Out of You” that’s the weirdest thing ever! No, it’s not. It’s a perfect name. You want to know why? Because my nickname’s Mushu like the dragon from Mulan, and we’re both very similar, both loud, both talkative, both really fun people. Well, he’s not a person, but it’s okay. And I just wanted to inspire you to maybe do robotics someday in the future or just learn a little bit more about it. And today I’m going to tell you a story that happened to me during my first ever robotics competition. New things can be really scary, and this one was one of them. I was literally terrified because I was one of the drivers and I didn’t know if maybe I was gonna be the one to mess up my team and I didn’t want that. But as the games went on, our robot only worked once, and I knew that wasn’t enough to get an award. And I know you may be wondering, why are these awards important? Well, these awards can qualify you to go to the next round, which is the state competition, and everybody wants to go to state competition. And so did my team. We really did! Since this wasn’t a good competition for us, we knew that the only chance of an award that would qualify us was the design award. The design award is a combination of your notebook and your interview. Your notebook is your documentation of your process of building your robots, and your interview is basically when one judge or two comes up to you and asks you questions about your team and about your robot. It’s important that in the interview everybody talks because if not everybody talks, it won’t seem like you worked together as a group. And it’s really important that you look like you worked together because they may not know, but you do work together a lot. And so we really hoped that we would get the design award, but we knew there were so many other great great teams! I’m telling you, we got more and more nervous as they started giving out more and more awards, and we saw so many so many, and I’m telling you a lot of amazing teams! And that’s when they started to announce the winner of the design award, and they said 97793A, and that was my team name. And I’m telling you, I was jumping for joy! It was absolutely crazy. I’m telling you if you looked at my face for the first five seconds, I wasn’t even moving. I wasn’t blinking because I couldn’t even understand that this was real. This was actually happening to me. And then I ran up with my team and accepted our award. Then we got to go to the state competition, which was just an amazing experience, which led us to our next. And there we won another award, which led us to the world competition, and that was such a great experience. It was so amazing to be there, and it all started at this one competition. It all happened at this one competition. And I think that it’s so crazy because in robotics, there’s a lot of downs, right? But these ups that happen, they make the whole thing worthwhile. And that is why I love robotics, and that’s what robotics has taught me. And I wanted to end with a riddle because it keeps your gears turning and keeps your mind in shape. So I’m gonna say that riddle twice, and I’m gonna say it slow one. You want to know why? Because you might need to write it down. It’s a hard riddle. Even I didn’t understand it at first! EPISODE 1 RIDDLE: There are 30 men and two women dressed in uniforms of black or white. They’re locked in combat for many hours. The women may be few, but they hold the most power of all of those on the battlefield. Who are these warriors? And at the beginning of the next episode, I’ll tell you the answer to the riddle. If you got it hooray for you, and if you didn’t get it, we’re on the same step. It took me a while, and maybe you couldn’t get it right away. That is okay! I’ll give you a new riddle next episode, and I’ll tell you the answer to the old one. This is Misha Ahmed your host of ROBOMIND signing off!
