Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

Joseph Daniel Fiedler, or Scaryjoey as many know him, fills sketchbooks with paintings of lettuce leaves and trees, salamanders and turtles. He is a keen observer of the animals that thrive in the woods surrounding his rural home in Northern California, including the silver foxes that live in the forest behind. Fiedler was born and raised in Pennsylvania and has lived in Tokyo, New Mexico, Michigan, and California. Since 1973 he has made his living as an artist/illustrator/educator. He fuses his philosophy and love of nature into illustrations for clients that include the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Tufts Medical Center, New Orleans Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, and Arizona Highways. He has received many professional awards, and his paintings have been shown in over seventy-five gallery…

ANZAC BISCUITS (cookies are called “biscuits” in Australia) are very popular in Australia and New Zealand, especially on Anzac Day, April 25. During World War I, women on the home front would send these sweet treats to the soldiers fighting on faraway battlefields in Europe. Because they contain no eggs—which were scarce during the war—the biscuits kept well on the long ocean voyage. What You’ll Need: 1 cup flaked oatmeal 1 cup flour 1/2 cup sugar 1 cup coconut 1/2 cup melted butter (4 ounces) 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 tablespoon golden syrup* 2 tablespoons boiling water What to Do: 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 2. Mix oatmeal, flour, sugar, and coconut in a large bowl. 3. Stir syrup into melted butter. 4. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and…

The ponderous hippopotamus, herbivorous and gluttonous, to Africa indigenous (and intermittently subaqueous), is known to be gregarious with others of his kind, but when I hear his most discourteous noises inharmonious, noises most tremendous, noises verging on the gaseous, noises porculous and flatuous, hippo noises of no kind, I really am most curious if they sound much more melodious to ears of hippo populace than to human ears of mine? But I’ve learned that it’s impetuous, indecorous and dangerous to criticize as unmellifluous a beast that’s so abdominous, with temper so cantankerous, and jaws so wide and cavernous, and incisors sharp and treacherous . . . which is why I sign these lines—Subterraneous, Posthumous, and Anonymous…

Fable Thatcher has a mysterious power of prophecy —whatever she writes comes true, unless she writes concerning herself. One evening, the wizard Khaos comes to the Moonlight Faire, searching for the girl who writes the future. Khaos battles Roderic, the wizard who raised Fable. Before he dies, Roderic tells Fable to seek help at Hush Castle. There, in the library attended by the Silent Sisters, Fable barely survives the attack of a winged monster, a homunculus sent by Khaos to spy on her. Her life is saved by a girl wearing a cloak of blackbird feathers, Araceli Luminè, who lives in a loft under the library’s highest dome. Opening a trunk, Luminè shows Fable a book written in Ishantrian, the language of wizards and sorcerers. Luminè’s father had died retrieving…

“ UNEASY LIES THE head that wears a crown,” observes our bard, Shakespeare, in his play Henry IV. This, of course, was not meant literally. But the crown does provide the ruler with major responsibility. Crown comes from the Latin corona (wreath, garland) and is still reflected in today’s coroner, originally an officer of the crown. Generally, a crown is attached to a royal head, that of His or Her Majesty, or perhaps even the head of a lowly mayor. All these major words have their roots in the Latin majestas (greatness, dignity). A royal, regal personage tries to rule over us, and both these words evolved from the Latin rex (king). In the 1300s the Middle English roialtee had the meaning of magnificence, pomp, and wealth. The crown, of…

Pippa is helping her younger brother, James, with his mathematics when he becomes distracted by a flying machine, built like a giant dragonfly, in the square outside their London townhouse. James races out to join the crowd surrounding the Dragonfly as Doctor Hargrove, its inventor, is about to embark on an experimental flight. Pippa chases after her brother and meets a street lad by a statue of William III, who gives her a handkerchief when she sniffles in the January cold. He points to James climbing into the back of the Dragonfly. Pippa pushes through the crowd toward her brother. With a helpful boost from the street lad, Pippa crawls into the tail as the machine takes off. Doctor Hargrove is angry to find Pippa and James on board. Their…

MY BIG BROTHER , Joshua, is not like my friends’ brothers. He’s fourteen years old, he goes to a special school, and he has Down syndrome. Usually he is OK to get along with, but sometimes he gets angry and yells and throws things. I guess he’s just upset because he can’t do all the stuff that I do, and about people having a go at him—teasing him—at times. But I want to tell you how I found out that Joshua could do something no one else could do. Dad and I used to go everywhere together, like football and Cubs, and Grandpa went everywhere with Joshua. Grandpa taught him to fish and to play the bugle. These are the only things that Joshua does well. I can’t catch fish…

MY MASTER HAS been working on his speeches all night. While I have been guarding the gate, he has been in the house, coming up with fancy ways to tell people to leave Rome. Sometimes I feel like shouting, “Just say, ‘Go away!’” That won’t do for Marcus Tullius Cicero, the highest elected official in Rome. Not enough words. I know about his long words. Cicero bought me to be his scribe. But he recites too fast for me. I have to leave out words so I can keep up. Sometimes he calls me an idiot and makes me copy over, grumping about the cost of paper. Yesterday, he said I’d never amount to anything and sent me out to be the gatekeeper. I am not ashamed. I can write,…