I plucked Island of Thieves off the shelf absentmindedly when I visited the library on a borrowing-spree, and admittedly, I wasn’t expecting anything much. In fact, I had borrowed it for my little brother, who is an eight-year-old. However, our paths crossed sooner than I expected, as before a piano lesson I glanced at the relatively interesting cover and decided to bring it along. A decision that I both would and wouldn’t regret. This mild thriller and mystery by Josh Lacey, though a little off my age and reading level, was enjoyable from the start. From the perspective of twelve-year-old Tom Trelawney, the pace is set quite early in the book, with the story quickly jumping from place to place as the adventure progresses to the more exciting parts. Reminiscent of Gordan Korman’s action-packed novels, the story brings unknowing Tom into a world of gang leaders, fake painting sellers, and long lost treasure. The action and plot are relatively simple and understandable and the mystery is mostly laid out in front of you. However, with the addition of a few complicated parts here and there, this is still an intriguing story to read. Similar to the likes of Spy School and The 39 Clues, this book packs adventure and a treasure-hunt-style mystery together in one package. This book is a great stepping stone to see if you like the genre, from which you can progress to more intense and deeper stories in the young adult section, or prominent series such as City Spies. However, for younger readers, this book will be action and adventure at its best. The mystery is also so-so, but is also the reason I like it, because it can be cracked quite easily, at least compared to most other books in this genre. However, it still is quite interesting and fun to read the clues and figure it out as the story goes on, imagining yourself in the position of the main character and his uncle, relying on the mystery to keep themselves alive. They will have to follow the clues to find the treasure within an afternoon—or else get ditched by the gang leader. So all in all? What did I think? Well… For me, the book wasn’t extremely special in its category, with so many other great books, but was ultimately worth a read. However, as I have said multiple times before, the book is highly recommended for readers ages 5-8 as it is a relatively rare thriller for that age group. So, if you are looking for a random read, nab this book and in the comments below, tell me what you think! Island of Thieves by Josh Lacey. Clarion Books, 2013. Buy the book here and help support Stone Soup in the process!
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Weekly Creativity #268: Make a Hybrid Drawing/Collage of a Landscape
Make a hybrid drawing/collage of a landscape. For example, you might draw the sun but you might cut out an image of a tree and paste it into the artwork.
Poetry Soup – Ep. 13: “There Was Earth Inside Them” by Paul Celan
Poetry Soup – Ep. 13: “There Was Earth Inside Them” by Paul Celan Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Today, I’ll be reading the poem, “There was Earth Inside Them,” by Paul Celan. Paul Celan was born on November 23, 1920, in what was formerly Cernăuți, Kingdom of Romania, and is now Chernivtsi, Ukraine, into a Jewish family. Despite being born in Romania, Celan mainly spoke German. His father was adamant about Celan’s education in Hebrew and about Judaism in general. Around the time Celan graduated from preparatory school, he began writing poetry. Celan went to France in order to study medicine, but he went back home a year later to study language and literature. During World War II, while Celan was away from home, his parents were sent to a concentration camp, where they both died. This is the reason why so much of Celan’s poetry is about the Holocaust. In 1952, Celan married Gisèle Lestrange, who was a French graphic artist. Paul Celan drowned himself on April 20, 1970. Much of his work was later translated by Michael Hamburger, who translated the poem I will be reading today. There Was Earth Inside Them, and they dug. They dug and they dug, so their day went by for them, their night. And they did not praise God, who, so they heard, wanted all this, who, so they heard, knew all this. They dug and heard nothing more; they did not grow wise, invented no song, thought up for themselves no language. They dug. There came a stillness, and there came a storm, and all the oceans came. I dig, you dig, and the worm digs too, and that singing out there says: They dig. O one, o none, o no one, o you: Where did the way lead when it led nowhere? O you dig and I dig and I dig towards you, and on our finger the ring awakes. “They Had Earth Inside Them” is one of my favorite poems, and Paul Celan one of my favorite poets – all of his poetry has beautiful rhythm and metaphor. This poem is an extended metaphor, filled with beautiful language that paints images in the minds of the readers – such as a ring “awakening,” or shining on a finger. The poem is about trying to find meaning in existence. In the poem, a group of people referred to simply as “they,” dig to discover this meaning. As “they” dig, time passes by, and they invent no “song” or “language.” In this way, the first part of the poem seems to show the search for meaning as negative. The lines, “And they did not praise God,/ who, so they heard, wanted all this,/ who, so they heard, knew all this,” suggest that religion is a sort of search for meaning as well, God being a stand-in for the meaning of life. After the line, “there came a stillness and there came a storm,” everything changes. This line is the turn of the poem. All of a sudden, Celan breaks the parallelism, making it so not only “they” are digging, but also “I,” “you,” and, of course, the “worm,” a symbol of death, showing that life is short and that we are all trapped in the search for meaning. In the end of the poem, the ring “awakens” on a finger, almost as if it has been shined by the digging and scraping of the hands in the dirt. This line disperses all the negativity at the end of the poem – the ring symbolizes the little things that we live for, it symbolizes finding the “earth inside of them,” or the meaning that is in them, perched on their finger. The image of the poem does remain mixed, however – the ring shines, but it could also be covered in dirt from the repeated digging. Celan managed to create this beautiful poem in just four stanzas – the power of a short poem. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Poetry Soup, and I’ll see you soon with the next one!
