An update from our thirtieth Book Club meeting! On September 25, the Stone Soup Book Club discussed Beyond the Bright Sea, by Loren Wolk. Beyond the Bright Sea tells the story of twelve-year-old Crow and her search for her birth family after having spent her entire life on an isolated island off the coast of Massachusetts, with Osh, the guardian who rescued and raised her. There were ten Book Club participants in attendance from the US, England, and Dubai. We engaged in in-depth conversations about the book’s various themes as well as character, setting and plot. As always, we endeavored to unpack how and for what purpose each of these elements were crafted in Wolk’s development of the novel. We also participated in a couple of fun writing activities. We explored, in writing, the notion of home; what makes a place a home and what is it like to feel a sense of yearning for home? Participants could choose to share their reflections about home directly from their own perspectives, or to explore their ideas about home through a fictionalized account. We also engaged in a writing activity that allowed us to imagine a sequel to the book. In doing so, we discussed what aspects of the book’s current ending we would like to see preserved, and what aspects would be fun to disrupt! The overwhelming consensus of the group was that this was a great read with vivid, believable characters, an intriguing setting, and a fast-paced, exciting plot! Remember: if you attended book club and liked what you wrote for these activities, submit it through the Writing Workshop Submission Form and we will post it along with other stories on the Stone Soup website! At the conclusion of our discussion, we chose our October book and the December book was announced! Our Next Book, to be discussed on October 30: When Stars are Scattered, by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed We are excited to share that on, December 11th, our final Book Club meeting of this session, we will be joined by author and historian, Lucy Worsley, to discuss her book The Austen Girls!
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Book Club Activity: Making Our Own Anthology
At our most recent Book Club meeting on May 29, the Stone Soup Book Club read Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, by Jason Reynolds (you can read about the meeting here). As a writing activity, we decided it would be fun to make our own Look Both Ways, an anthology by our participants about what happens to people on their walk home from school. Each of our participants wrote their own stories, and then several of them submitted their writing to be published in an “anthology” format, right here. Below you can read some of the writing from this Book Club. Some of the stories are based on real life, and others are fictional. Enjoy! Jared Ashman, 14San Diego, CA 1. Untitled – Jordan and Jared Ashman, 14 Jordan was your average 12 year old kid. He walked home from school alone each day, and got home to play video games and eat candy. One day, after a particularly tiring day at school, he decided he wanted to take a shortcut home from school. Before, his mother had warned him about taking this shortcut, for she said it could be dangerous. However, Jordan was particularly tired today, and ignored his mother’s warning. He started walking into the forest, and after only a few steps, he found himself lost in the forest. Was he supposed to turn left, or right? There was barely even any light here. After almost an hour, he discovered a thin path of pebbles that he decided to follow. At the very end of the path, he discovered a temple! After pausing for a moment to take it all in, he walked inside. When Jordan walked inside, he found a deep tunnel going down to what he could only imagine was a secret layer. Walking down, he heard weird sounds inside. Coming to the bottom of the tunnel, he paused to stare in awe at the massive gate that hadn’t been there before. Walking in, he saw a massive monitor with arrows pointing all over… was that the world? He barely had a chance to register what he saw, before he was hit on the head by something from behind. He woke up in his bed, and realised it must have all been a dream. Or so he thought… Anya Geist, 14Worcester, MA 2. Apricot Street – Anya Geist, 14 I walk quickly down Main Street, joining the crowd of kids rushing toward the buses. Main Street’s not an actual street; it’s a hallway in my school (and it smells like a subway station), but because it’s a pretty big hallway, everyone calls it Main Street. Outside, the roar of the buses, all lined up in a row, threatens to drown out the joyful laughter and yells of high schoolers out of school for the day. I find my way over to my friend Lily, standing with a boy on our bus, Owen. “Is the bus here yet?” Lily shakes her head. “Nope. I walked all up and down the line with Sara.” “Again? Really?” Lately bus 51 has been coming later and later. I think our driver is kind of senile. “At least we didn’t miss it,” Owen says, half-jokingly; a few weeks ago the bus left me and him at school and the assistant principal had to give us a ride home. “That’s true,” I laugh, “but still.” Eventually the bus does arrive, though, and we load onto it. There’s not a ton of kids, because of COVID, so it’s pretty quiet as it barrels down Apricot Street, where our school is located. In middle school my bus took a different route, one that went up Goddard Memorial and Airport Hill, then through the traffic jam that is Tatnuck Square. I liked that route. I liked when the bus drove past the airport; on clear days, you could see Boston from up there (or at least that’s what Liam Forester said; I never saw it myself). But now we go down Main Street (a real street this time), alongside the rest of the buses from school, until they each break off to drive their respective routes. I think it’s pretty funny how all of the buses drive together at first; it’s like a big, yellow army, slowly separating to carry out different missions. My bus’s mission has only a few stops. Owen’s is the first. “I wonder what happened with your neighbor,” I ask him when the bus is pretty close to his corner. This morning he came to school saying the police were looking for his neighbor; it was all he could talk about in first period. “Yeah . . .” he says, “I wonder if all the cop cars are still there. No kidding, it was scary when they showed up this morning, just knocking on the door, asking if we’d the guy a few doors down. I bet he did something pretty bad, though. It wouldn’t surprise me.” “Well,” I tell him, as the bus pulls to a stop, “let me know what happens.” “Yeah, I will. Bye!” The bus shakes as he and a few others get off. Coes Pond flies by as the bus navigates the city, and the rows of grey seats slowly empty, till it’s just me and Lily, talking about our classes. “Where’s your class in Romeo and Juliet?” I ask. Our English teacher is making us read it. “Act 3, I think.” “Okay. Okay. George and Jonathan” (they’re two best friends in my class) “read the balcony scene the other day—they insisted on it.” I’m laughing now. “But Jonathan couldn’t stop cracking up, so he totally ruined it. He also pronounced Capulet wrong, it was hilarious—everyone in our class was trying so hard not to laugh.” “No, really?” “Yeah, he said, like, Capultet, or something. It was so funny.” “That’s great.” Now the bus is wheeling through Newton Square, down Pleasant Street, where Berry Fusion is located—a frozen yogurt place all the kids in
Book Club Report: Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
An update from our eighth and ninth Stone Soup Book Club meetings! Over the last two weeks in Book Club we have been discussing Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. We went deep with this heavy, sometimes gruesome story, and managed to have a lot of fun! On our first week with this book, we began by imagining that we were stranded on an island with a group of our friends and we had to create a society that would allow us to live peacefully together. We separated into groups and had a blast picking symbols to represent our societies, a list of original words and definitions to communicate with one another, and a slogan that represented our core values. After this we discussed the many symbols in the book and what we thought they were meant to represent. On our second week we grappled with the core theme of the book–left to our own devices, are humans basically good, or basically evil? Without the various rules and norms that make up society, would we rise to the occasion and create a civilization, or would we descend into savagery? As we discussed, it appears that William Golding does not have a very positive view of humanity! We concluded by splitting into three groups and holding a mock trial for the central characters Jack and Ralph. One group represented Ralph’s point of view, one group represented Jack’s point of view, and one group asked questions and tried to give a fair judgement about who the better leader was. A very heated debate ensued! Note: There is some interesting information about the book and its author, including interviews with William Golding and readings by actors of parts of Lord of the Flies, at the William Golding website. There is also an interesting article about the true story of what happened when a group of boys were shipwrecked on an island in 1965, in the Guardian newspaper. Next week, we will begin discussing The List, by Patricia Forde. After two weeks with that book we will collect more suggestions and vote on our next two books. The Stone Soup Book Club is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers, age 9-13, throughout the summer. We meet every Wednesday at 1pm PST (4pm EST) for one hour via Zoom to discuss our chosen book.
