We know from the letters we receive from prospective book reviewers that many of our readers enjoy historical fiction. That’s one reason we’re always on the lookout for good historical fiction to publish in Stone Soup. It’s fun to read stories set in the past. You might just find that it’s fun to try and write one. Where to begin? Perhaps you are studying the Civil War in school and you find it fascinating. Or perhaps you discovered a passion for the past on your own, by reading Laura Ingalls Wilder, seeing a Shakespeare play, or watching Downton Abbey on TV. Maybe you fed your passion with your own research, either online or in books from the library. If you are fascinated by a period in history, you can share your passion with others by writing a fictional story set in that time. While historical essays may be interesting to people who are already history buffs, historical fiction casts a wider net. A good story is a good story. With well-drawn characters facing common human problems, you can share your love of history with your readers and maybe even inspire some of them to learn more about the historical backdrop of your story. In Miss Kagawa’s Gift, the featured story from our January/February 2016 issue, 13-year-old author Megan Lowe uses a a real incident from 1928 as her starting point. In that year, Japan sent 58 “friendship dolls” to the United States to reciprocate for a similar gift from the U.S. to Japan the previous year. Relations between the two countries had been strained by the Immigration Act of 1924, which prohibited East Asians from immigrating to the United States. The gifts were intended to improve relations between them. You can read more about these events here. One of the dolls, Miss Kagawa, was placed in a museum in North Carolina. And that’s where our fictional story begins. Akemi, an orphan girl from Japan, has just been adopted by an American family. She’s having a hard time adjusting to her new life in North Carolina. Her adoptive father, Chris, works in the museum, and it’s his job to set up the display for Miss Kagawa. Along with the doll, the museum has received various accessories, including a miniature tea set. You may have mixed feeling when you read about what Chris did. He brought home one of Miss Kagawa’s teacups and gave it to his adopted daughter as a gift to help her feel more at home in her new country. On the one hand, of course, it is wrong to steal. On the other hand, this is a perfect gift for little Akemi, and maybe one little teacup won’t be missed. What do you think? The moral question aside, isn’t this an interesting setting for a story? Not only does the story make us think about family life, adoption, starting over—all of which can happen in any time and place, but it also sparks our curiosity about relations between Japan and the United States in the 1920s. When we research the incident further, we see that each doll’s costume was different, each one representing a different city or region in Japan. We might be inspired to look even further. How did the Immigration Act come about? Did the dolls really help to improve relations between the two countries, at least for a little while? Thirteen years after the gift of the friendship dolls, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. declared war on Japan. World War II had begun. The more you learn, the more you will want to know. And that’s what I call a great piece of historical fiction. Without even realizing it, we are drawn into a different place and time. Our lives are made richer as we learn and understand more about the incidents that brought us to the world we live in today.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
More art for more kids
Grand Junction, Colorado is one of those western towns that can’t really decide if it wants to be progressive or good ol’ boy. Maybe the longtime residents just ignore us newbies (anyone who has been here less than 30 years is pretty much a newbie) and go on just doing what they do. Ranching, mining, farming, hunting, fishing, going to church and loving the occasional air show. But downtown Grand Junction tells a story of people who have kept culture and art alive for over 100 years, over 200 miles from any city of any size, and from those cities, another several hundred miles to the NEXT city of any size. Distances are in days out here. I grew up in a town the size of Grand Junction, but in California, where cities aren’t separated by long stretches of desert and towns are blips along a very lonely highway. In California, it’s easy to find a place where art and music are never even questioned as to whether they should be within reach of any average person. This town, like most towns in the West, was a wagon-stop, a train watering stop, a gathering place around rivers and between mountains. Our downtown shows its history in old brick and stone buildings, in the railroad yard and silos. The difference is that in 1962, when small cities all over the country were looking at all kinds of ways to stave off the death of their older downtown, Grand Junction made exactly the right choice in funding a walking business park on Main Street. Public art, along with shade trees and benches were central to the plan. Business people and residents saw that keeping a cultural identity and supporting local art was fundamental to maintaining pride and character in the community. That community pride and identity is one reason we landed here. We take anyone who comes to visit us downtown to see the wonderful buildings, unique restaurants and stores, and the public art on every street, every 15 or 20 feet. Nobody we’ve taken downtown has ever said “You have WAY too much art here!” It’s a point of pride. Make no mistake, this is still a western town, with ranches and pasture weaving into the fabric of close-in neighborhoods, and petroleum extraction and coal mining very much a part of everyday life. In 1980 Exxon came to town. Up in the mountains east of here, was oil shale, and Exxon wanted it. The scale of their plans were truly mind-boggling. A new airport, a whole shopping mall and five brand-new schools, and that was just the beginning. Thousands of jobs, millions of dollars, a boom that would end Middle East oil dependency! People poured into Grand Junction, built homes and excitedly planned for shiny new schools for their children. But almost as soon as it began, it was over. Exxon pulled out, said “oops, we made a little mistake here…hehehe…we can’t afford to extract the oil from the shale. Our bad!” And just like that, the town emptied. Tax revenue tanked, and the schools scrambled to stay open. Little wonder they trimmed back to skeletal funding, and art education was one of the first programs to disappear. NOW we get to what I do every week. It didn’t take long for several members of this community who knew that art education is fundamental to a child’s growth to find a way to put it back into the elementary schools. Classroom teachers taught art as a part of their curriculum, but there were artists and college teachers and community members who wanted children to learn about important artists, who they were and how they shaped the world. Art Heritage was born. It started in one school, with a poster or two and a written biography of each artist. Slides were added, and a hands-on project. Music on tape
Can Boys Write About Girls, and Vice-Versa?
The standard advice for new writers — “Write what you know” — is good advice for all writers. When you write about what you know first hand, you have your own experiences to draw on. You can fill in all those details from your own life to make your characters, their emotions, and the situations they find themselves in believable. It’s not surprising that most of the stories we publish in Stone Soup by girl authors have girls as the main characters. And most of our boy authors write about boys. But every once in a while, we find a great story where the author has managed to create believable characters of the opposite sex. In our November/December 2015 issue, we have not one but two such stories! In “Face Your Fears,” 12-year-old author Jem Burch, a boy from California, writes about two sisters who were abandoned by their parents when they were very young. Flash forward eight years, and the sisters are living what should be a happy life with their loving adoptive mom, Amber. But older sister Katherine can’t get past the trauma of losing her parents. It’s younger sister Lily who finally helps Katherine face her fears and snap out of her depression. “Thank You, Mr. Huffington,” by 10-year-old Nadia Suben of New York, shows us a young boy who is also dealing with loss. Josh misses his dad terribly. He reluctantly joins the school band. He likes the band teacher, Mr. Huffington, but he doesn’t practice his trumpet. Then there’s a pivotal scene where Mr. Huffington confronts Josh, and Josh confides, “My dad… he was a jazz musician.” Josh starts to cry, and Mr. Huffington, great guy that he is, knows just what to do. He puts his arm around Josh to comfort him. He helps Josh see that music can help him cope with a tough situation. Josh will never forget Mr. Huffington’s advice, or his kindness. Both of our young authors show a deep understanding of their characters. Both make us believe that these are real people. We are moved by them. We feel what they feel. How do Jem and Nadia do it? How do they put themselves in the minds of a character of the opposite sex? Perhaps Jem has a sister he knows really well. Perhaps Nadia has a brother. I bet both authors read a lot and get ideas for their own work by paying close attention to what they read. While it may not be the obvious choice for a boy to write about girls, or vice-versa, why not give it a try? Start by thinking about the stories Jem and Nadia wrote. Then think about your favorite kids’ books by adults. Harry Potter comes to mind, of course. Give yourself a challenge and try writing a story from a point of view that is very different from your own, but still believable.
