One for the Murphys is a coming-of-age novel written by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, bestselling author of Fish In A Tree, a book which received a very favorable review on the Stone Soup blog. One for the Murphys centers around Carley Connors, who moves to Connecticut to live with her foster family after her mother ends up in the hospital. The foster family, which consists of Mr. Murphy, his wife Julie, and their children Michael Eric, Adam, and Daniel, live a very different life than Carley imagined or has ever lived before. As she tries to adjust to her new life, her thoughts on friendships, family, and mother-daughter relationships shift drastically. Carley, her friend Toni, her mom, and her foster family are all very well-developed characters who have complicated and nuanced relationships–one of the novel’s selling points. Carley loves Toni, but they are very different people who end up learning a lot about different family dynamics, books, and Broadway musicals. Carley also loves her mother, although their relationship is far from perfect. Carley often had to fend for herself when she lived with her mother, but she still has many fond memories of her. Meanwhile, she finds herself at once being very fond of the Murphys while feeling undeserving of the affection and attention they shower on her. The characters trying to figure out their places in society and in one another’s hearts are part of what makes the book such a captivating read. Unlike many coming-of-age stories, One for the Murphys does not have a picture-perfect happy ending. Carley has learned a lot, and is a more mature adult ready for the next chapter of her life, but as the reader closes the book, they know that Carley’s happiness was short lived, that she is heading towards a challenge which will leave her longing for the comfort she experienced and wondering what will happen to her when she grows up. The novel shows us that Carley finally has a passion, but that it is not one she is likely to achieve. She knows what it means to be a family, but only just in time to realize she has to leave one forever. She makes friends and establishes her roots only for them to be torn up again. But through all this is a little kernel of hope: that Carley will learn to make do with what she has, get her dream job, see the family she had to leave behind, and move to the place where her life first changed for the better. One for the Murphys is a wonderfully heartwarming story about friends, family, and what being a teenager is all about. The book made me laugh, cry, and root for Carley; with any luck, it will sit on your bookshelf, like it did on mine, getting reread and passed on to those I love the most. One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. Nancy Paulsen Books, 2013. Buy the book here and help support Stone Soup in the process!
Young Bloggers
Chew on This, Reviewed by Iris Ma, 12
If you’ve ever had a sudden need for food, but can’t get a proper meal, you probably thought of going to a fast food restaurant because it’s quick, convenient and cheap. This would be a great solution if it wasn’t for the dozens of secrets hidden behind those famous golden arches and other symbols of fast food. Chew On This, by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson, exposes the unwelcome secrets that fast food restaurants have sealed behind all of their advertisements, toys, characters and jingles. If you enjoy fast food and would like to keep living within these illusions these restaurants have cast upon you, you may. But if you wish to escape and learn the secrets behind the meals that you have happily consumed, be ready to witness the truth, but be willing to accept the consequences because these restaurants might never look the same to you. Think back to the first time you saw or heard of fast food. You probably don’t remember, because fast food restaurants intentionally target young children to become loyal customers so they become lifetime customers. One of the most surprising facts I learned is that “Americans now spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, and recorded music – combined.” Large companies know that children have a great deal of influence on their parents’ spending, so they know that targeting children while they are young is crucial to earning more money. You may have seen some of these tricks, such as advertisements, toys, play areas and characters. You could have been one of those kids who has begged to eat a happy meal, to collect another toy and to play in McDonald land. If this is the case, then you’re not alone. In fact, according to the authors, “One out of every three toys given to a child in the United States each year is from a fast-food restaurant.” These toys aren’t there just for fun, they’re there to attract more kids and keep them coming back for more. Fast food companies specifically work with leading toy industries to create toys that are aimed at young children. These toys such as small dolls, toy cars, and Teletubby toys are aimed at young children, sometimes even those who are too young to speak. There’s a lot of information in this book about marketing, but this book is called Chew On This, so you can expect to learn more about food. No matter how much psychological manipulation these companies use, there is still food to talk about. Your burgers, shakes, sodas and fries may look innocent and appealing on the outside, but they hide a lot of secrets that can often be repulsive. McCannibals? What could they have to do with your McNuggets or your crispy sandwiches? What’s in a milkshake? Milk? Strawberries? Bugs? Artificial flavoring? What’s in the beef? What are the lives of the workers who take care of and process the animals? What happens when you eat too much fast food? Even if some of the details seem fictional and horrific, both authors are journalists who specialize in investigative journalism. The secrets exposed in this book might change your view on the world of fast food—it changed mine. The illusions that fast food companies have created may be changed, even if fast food is quick, the tradeoff for fast food has a price. If you want to open your eyes to the truth, then read Chew On This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. Clarion Books, 2007. Buy the book here and help support Stone Soup in the process!
Poetry Soup Ep. 6 – “The Motive for Metaphor” by Wallace Stevens
Ep. 6 : “The Motive for Metaphor” by Wallace Stevens Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Today, I’ll be reading “The Motive for Metaphor,” by Wallace Stevens, which is a poem about poetry itself. Wallace Stevens was born on October 2, 1879, in Reading, Pennsylvania. He was both a lawyer and an insurance executive, but above all, he was an amazing poet. Some of his most well-known poems are the haunting, “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” “The Snow Man,” and, one of my personal favorites, “The Man with the Blue Guitar,” which is based off of Picasso’s painting, “The Old Guitarist.” Wallace Stevens went to Harvard and then the New York Law School, from which he graduated with a law degree. In 1909, he married Elsie Viola Kachel. The two had a daughter named Holly Stevens. Wallace Stevens won the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award for Poetry for his books “The Auroras of Autumn” and “The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens,” the Frost Medal, and only after he died did he receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He didn’t publish his first collection of poetry, “Harmonium,” until he was 43 years old! “The Motive for Metaphor” is only one of the many poems in which Stevens talks about writing poetry. Another example is his poem, “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction.” This could be called his ars poetica — a poem which talks about why we write poetry, how we do it, and what poetry really is. Stevens’s poems often also focus on what reality is and how we separate or mix it with our image of the world, which is influenced and formed by our imagination. Now I’m going to read “The Motive for Metaphor,” a poem about the tensions between reality and imagination. You like it under the trees in autumn, Because everything is half dead. The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves And repeats words without meaning. In the same way, you were happy in spring, With the half colors of quarter-things, The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds, The single bird, the obscure moon– The obscure moon lighting an obscure world Of things that would never be quite expressed, Where you yourself were not quite yourself, And did not want nor have to be, Desiring the exhilarations of changes: The motive for metaphor, shrinking from The weight of primary noon, The A B C of being, The ruddy temper, the hammer Of red and blue, the hard sound– Steel against intimation–the sharp flash, The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X. “The Motive for Metaphor” is about how we experience the world compared to how the world really is. Wallace Stevens is obsessed with this idea, and it comes up in much of his work. For example, in Stevens’s poem, “The Snow Man,” he writes, “For the listener, who listens in the snow,/ And, nothing himself, beholds/Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.” Stevens proposes two ideas here, which are reality and imagination. He is interested in the difficulty of really being able to know things. One example of this could be religion. Stevens asks himself what we do without God. What can we do to fill this void that appears when we no longer have a greater deity to rely on? In Stevens’s case, the answer is art. Metaphor, poetry, and many other things can fill the emptiness of the void, which, in this poem, is symbolized by the “X” mentioned at the end. Stevens also talks to a “you” in the poem. This “you” could be any regular person — the reader, a lover, a friend — but, as Stevens does in many of his poems, he could also be talking to himself. He tells himself that there is some sort of in between space which must be made use of. Stevens also refers to “primary noon,” which is reality. We shrink away from it, seemingly afraid of it or uncomfortable with facing it. Another way that he refers to this concept is “the ABC of being.” It is the very base of all life. The entire poem asks if we can live well without language, art, and metaphor. It shows that they are important and beautiful — we need them to make reality, in a way, bearable. To Wallace Stevens, the best way to capture this idea was in a poem — one of the very things he is talking about. Stevens shows the contrast between reality and the in between space in the beginning of his poem. Autumn and spring could be considered in between seasons, spring not being as hot and bright as summer, autumn not being as cold and barren as winter. Summer and winter feel so clear, while autumn and spring are wavering, unsure of how they are supposed to be. Stevens likes these spaces — they are spaces of possibility. Many of the colors Stevens uses in his poetry have meanings — for example, “the hammer of red and blue.” Red symbolizes reality, while blue stands for imagination. These two colors blend together to create poetry. To accompany this image, the last stanza includes phrases like, “the hard sound” and “the sharp flash.” Wallace Stevens uses stressed syllables — he makes the poem itself sound powerful and even slightly angry, like a hammer banging against something else. The “X” that Stevens talks about also, in a way, contradicts itself. However, it isn’t because of clashing colors. It is because “X” turns out to be both good and bad. We need it but we also need to fill the empty space that hovers all around us. “X” is a horrible necessity. Stevens uses sound and language to show us what the “motive for metaphor” — and poetry in general — really is. We need these things to survive, to sustain ourselves. But, of course, we also need Stevens’s “X.” However, Stevens
