Untitled By Sage Millen, 13 (Vancouver, Canada) A note from William What a gorgeous spring day it is here in Santa Cruz, California! I hope that as March gives way to April that all of your gardens are at least beginning their spring re-birth. And, with the coming of spring, I’d like to announce that our spring session classes—beginning April 23—are up and ready on Eventbrite! Once again, we are offering two writing classes—mine, Saturdays at 9 AM Pacific, and Conner Bassett’s, Saturdays at 11 AM Pacific—as well as Book Club with Maya Mahony Saturday April 30 and Saturday May 28 at 9 AM Pacific. We’re sorry not to offer a short form filmmaking class with Isidore Bethel this go-round, but hope to once again offer it in the future. In the meantime, please watch some of the amazing short films our students made in the fall session of 2020. In terms of the behind-the-scenes activity at Stone Soup, these last few weeks find us in a lull. Projects are in process. Our website revisions are coming along. Sophia Opitz, our fabulous administrator, and I had a very good meeting on Friday with our web developers. We will start seeing website changes go live next week. Mostly, Sophia and I have been working on the educator pages getting the new curriculum material in shape preparatory to the launch of our site license beta testing program in a couple weeks. I’d like to talk about Sage’s fabulous photograph showing two kids reading Stone Soup under a blanket. As part of our website revision we are making sure that all photographs on the site are by kids. And, I will say, what a difference that is making! Our Stone Soup photographers have a creative flair that sets their work apart. If you are a photographer age 13 or younger and would like to be part of our pool of web photographers, please write to sophia@stonesoup.com. Weekend project: I want you to look at this double portrait. It is a photograph in which we, the observers, share a private moment with these two girls. Unlike most portraits in which the subject is looking directly at the camera, the girls in this photograph are focused on the issue Stone Soup they are reading—December 2021, to be exact! There is clearly lots I could say about how this photograph is framed and lit—the black background and gentle foreground lighting frame the girls to perfection—but in the interest of keeping things simple, I want you to focus on their eyes, on the direction of their gaze. I am not asking you today to compose a picture with careful lighting, as we see here, but what I am asking you to do is take a portrait of someone in the midst of an action—someone doing something alone or with someone else. What I want you to capture is that look where the person is focused on something else. Practicing, reading, cooking, drawing, typing. Doing something on their phone. What I want you to do is focus on the eyes. I want you to take a photograph in which the eyes of the person you are photographing are focused on what they are doing, not on you. There is one kind of intensity when the person you are photographing is looking directly into your camera—so that when we look at the picture they are looking at us. There is another kind of intensity when you capture the look on someone’s face who is absorbed in what they are doing, and that is the intensity I want you to go after this weekend with your phone or camera. As always, if you feel especially good about your photograph, please submit to us via Submittable. Until next time, From the Stone Soup Blog March 2022 Spring By Grace Zhuang, 6 (Vienna, VA) Winds are running around Telling everyone the good news, “Spring is coming!” “Spring is coming!” The little delphinium Looking around Looking for spring. She did not know that She herself is the spring. To read more from the March Issue, click here! 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. Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
book club
Book Club Report: Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan
An update from our thirty-third book club meeting! On February 26th, we discussed Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan. This uplifting and beautifully-written novel follows thirteen-year-old Esperanza Ortega. She has a charmed childhood as the daughter of a wealthy ranch-owner in Mexico, but a tragedy causes her to flee to the United States with her mother. In California, Esperanza and her mother become farmworkers, and must navigate poverty, racism, and labor strikes with the support of new friends. Everybody said that they had really enjoyed Esperanza Rising, and we all shared our favorite moments in the book. We started our discussion by talking about the evolving relationship between Esperanza and her friend Miguel. Back in Mexico, when Miguel was Esperanza’s parents’ servant, Esperanza had said there was ‘a deep river’ between them. We discussed what we thought this river symbolized, and agreed that it meant the gulf of wealth between them, which made Esperanza unwilling to have a relationship with him. We also agreed that it was satisfying to watch this dynamic change over the course of the book. Then we had a debate: would we have chosen to join the labor strike if we had been farmworkers like Esperanza? Most people said they would have been too scared to join the strike, out of fear of being deported, but one student said she would join the strike because she wanted to work for better wages. It was interesting to hear everybody’s different opinions! Next we talked about proverbs, or sayings, like the ones that Esperanza’s father and grandmother always told her. It was fun hearing proverbs from different people’s families. Last but not least, it was creative writing time! Since Esperanza Rising was based on the life story of the author’s grandmother, students had a choice to write down a story they remembered from a grandparent or other elderly person in their life. Or, they could write about a fruit harvest, like in the novel, using all the different senses to make it come alive. Some students chose to share out their writing with the group. It was lovely to hear about people’s grandparents, and the way they described the harvest with detail. I really enjoyed this month’s book club meeting, and am looking forward to next month, when we will be discussing The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell. Our next book, to be discussed March 26: The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell
Book Club Report: Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
An update from our thirty-second book club meeting! On January 29th, we discussed Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis. Students attended from all over the United States and we had an engaging discussion. This was the first session that I (Maya) led, and it was a delight to get to know the readers. Elijah of Buxton follows eleven-year-old Elijah, who lives in a settlement of people who have escaped slavery in Buxton, Canada (a real historical place.) We started out our discussion by talking about new things about history we had learned from reading the book. We discussed the Underground Railroad, and the dialect, or slang, that the characters in the book spoke in. Next we broke into small groups to discuss our favorite moments in the book. Many people mentioned that their favorite moments were scenes of humor, such as the pranks that Elijah and his friend play on Elijah’s ma, and the pranks Ma plays in revenge. This led to a lively full-group discussion of a humorous scene in the book, when Mr. Travis, the teacher, loses his temper at Elijah’s best friend. We also talked about the way that the residents of Buxton upheld their creed of “one helping one to uplift all.” We agreed that Mr. Leroy followed the creed, and that the Preacher, who did not, was a suspicious character. Finally, we looked at a scene in which the residents of Buxton welcome a family of refugees who have just escaped slavery in the United States. Together, we read the speech that Elijah’s Pa uses to welcome the new residents. Then the students got time to try some creative writing of their own. They could either choose to write their own version of a speech to welcome new refugees to Buxton, or they could write a scene with a funny prank. Students shared out their responses to the group. It was fun to hear the speeches and pranks that people came up with! After a great session of book club, I am looking forward to next month’s meeting, when we will be discussing the wonderful novel Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan. See you next time! Our Next Book (to be discussed on February 26): Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan
