We are now thinking we would like to record stories we haven’t previously recorded. We are looking for drama teachers, or anyone with recording experience who works with children, to work with us to record children reading Stone Soup stories for posting on this website and on iTunes. We may even produce a CD. We have been publishing Stone Soup for thirty-seven years and have a wealth of material by children up to age thirteen to work with.

If you might be interested in this project, please write to me, william@williamrubel.com. I am thinking that making recordings of children might entail a collaboration between a classroom teacher, a drama teacher, and a radio presenter at a community college or university radio station who could do the actual recording, and possibly the editing as well.

I look forward to hearing from you.

William Rubel
Co-Editor of Stone Soup

Dylan Sauder wrote his first story when he was 4. He had just ridden in a semitrailer for the first time and, to capture the experience, he dictated a story to his mom, he said.

Ten years later, the 14-year-old got his first story published in the January/February issue of Stone Soup, an international magazine by young writers and artists.

“Behind the Curtain” is about a boy searching for his grandfather and finding home in an abandoned theater.

The story was sparked by one line: “The soft sound of a violin could be faintly heard.”

The line came to him from his imagination, Dylan said, and “It sounded cool to me.”

That was about four years ago. Then one day during a writer’s workshop at Raymond School, 2659 76th St., he went back to that line and wrote a story around it, said Dylan, an eighth-grader.

His story is one of two highlighted on the cover of Stone Soup.

Gerry Mandel, editor of the magazine, said she usually picks a couple she feels are the best of the issue for the cover. About 200 submissions are received every week, she said, and fewer than 1 percent get published.

When he saw his story in print, Dylan said he danced around the house.

What he loves about writing is seeing people enjoy what he wrote, he says, “and seeing my thoughts and ideas come to life.”

He finds the time to write whenever an idea pops into his head.

Out of the family of six – he is the second in a quadruplet – Dylan says he and his dad are the writers. His dad, Scott, a fifth-grade teacher at Gifford Elementary School, wrote a testimony about parenting quadruplets, “Raised by Grace,” shortly after they were born.

Dylan says his dad writes more than he does. He doesn’t get to write as much, because he’s busy with youth group and various school activities like Battle of the Books and a mentoring reading program.

“I’ve always been reading, so that got me writing too,” Dylan said.

In addition to reading, he says he also enjoys singing and playing music.

In fact, his interests are so wide and varied he’s not sure what he wants to do in the future.

“That list is a mile long too,” he said. “I really like music so maybe something with music.”

Writer, doctor, chiropractor or even a pastor are all possibilities.

Still, Dylan plans to keep writing. Music and violin, two of his passions, are common themes in his stories.

“Behind the Curtain” opens with a scene that draws readers in and charms them with the magic of music: “The old, worn curtain loomed over the stage. Chairs covered in faded, red velvet cushions were scattered throughout the theatre. A piano that had once been played in the most famous of performances now housed a family of mice. The theatre was falling apart, yet it still contained a certain beauty and elegance. If you listened closely, you could faintly hear the soft, sweet sound of a violin coming from behind the dark curtain.”

The subject selection is also useful for teachers of creative writing. Creative writing assignments are often thematic. For every theme you will find that Stone Soup writers have taken very different approaches. This can help you develop projects for your own classroom. More simply, you can send your students to our web site for inspiration.

If you are still thinking about a Christmas gift, it is never too late for Stone Soup. We are mailing gift announcements every day up until Christmas Eve. And if you are like me, and often wake up just about Christmas time to the awful realization that one has waited too long and there is no way to get a gift in time, just order a subscription and tell your young friend that you have done so. Stone Soup is the perfect gift for budding writers. It offers kids great pleasure throughout the year and is that rare gift that helps kids grow more  expressive and creative.

This is where Stone Soup comes in. Stone Soup plays an invaluable role in the context of the homeschooling environment. It helps you, as the teacher, evaluate where your children place in terms of writing skills with the best students their age. It also offers your child works by other children to inspire them to write and to do their best. We encourage you to look through the sample issue posted on this site, and to look through stories, poems, and book reviews at our archive site.

We offer you a great deal of material at our web site for free, including creative writing curriculum. But it is clear to us from letters we receive from readers that children are uniquely impressed with seeing the work by other children in print and so we encourage you to both make the most of what we offer on this web site, and also to subscribe.

All these children’s magazines publish writing by kids.  The type of story and style of writing they publish is different from what we publish in Stone Soup. As a rule, Stone Soup is able to publish longer stories than these other magazines. It is always a good policy to read the magazine you want to publish in before sending your work. For example, if you read the magazine and see there is no rhyming poetry, and you write poetry that rhymes, then you can make a good guess that the editors of that children’s magazine will not be interested in your work. This doesn’t mean your poems aren’t good, only that the editors of that magazine won’t be interested in them. One of the wonderful things about being a publisher is that one can publish what one likes! And, of course, one of the wonderful things about being a writer is that you can write what you like! The trick to getting published in a magazine is matching up your work with the magazine that is most likely to appreciate it.

Magazines for Kids up to Age 14

If you submit a story to more than one magazine at a time, it is polite to state in your cover letter that you have done so. Always keep a copy of what you send. Do not expect any magazine to send your work back to you.

Creative Kids

A children’s magazine published by Prufrock Press, this quarterly magazine includes games, puzzles, stories, and opinions, all by kids ages 8 to 14.

Magic Dragon

Children in the elementary school grades are published in this this quarterly magazine.

New Moon

Especially for girls, New Moon is a bimonthly magazine publishing letters, articles and fiction by 8- to 14-year-old girls, as well as writing and art by adults.

Skipping Stones

Published 5 times a year, Skipping Stones celebrates cultural diversity. Submissions are welcome from young people of all ages.

My daughter got interested in ballet from looking at clips on YouTube when she was a few months into being two. She was so interested in the YouTube clips that I bought her a ballet, the original version of Sleeping Beauty. She was fascinated. She watched it over and over.  And so, I began to buy her more ballet’s. She watches Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Giselle, Coppelia, Nutcracker, and more. Rather than a goodnight story we have have goodnight ballet. Of course, she loves to dance and dances down the street, in restaurants and cafes, wherever there a flat space she is dancing. And seeing this, and my own reaction to it, has clarified for me who Stone Soup is really for.

Once can say that Stone Soup is for children who love to read and write, but I think better put is to say that it for children who are passionate about reading and writing. I can guarantee that if your child or grandchild is between the ages of 10 and 13 and is really passionate about reading and writing, then Stone Soup is the perfect gift, no qualms or hesitations about that.

We get letters from kids and from their parents telling us that when Stone Soup arrives in the house that the kid grabs the magazine and runs to her room and reads it cover to cover. Kids with passion for reading. We get letters from kids who write at a rate that most adult writers only dream of. Kids with passion for writing.

As one moves down from everyday passion to  sometimes passion to no never Stone Soup becomes less sure. Only you know your child and what inspires. What I can say is that Stone Soup is by children. So, it is different from any other book or magazine you might bring into the house. There is many an adult author who was given up on at some point but who then found a spark and a deep interest in writing. We also know from letters that there are children who have been given Stone Soup and who then found their voice.

As with so many things we get for our children, it is often helpful if we put in effort, too. I watch ballets with my daughter. My enthusiasm (I am new to ballet) reinforces hers. You might want to read Stone Soup along with your child, at least at first.

If you have any questions about Stone Soup, please don’t hesitate to write. And if you have an experience to share about how your child interacts with Stone Soup, please leave a comment, below.