Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens March 2016

“Oxbow Harbor” Woodblock print Jonathan Bean lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania—in a yellow building, on the third floor, above a café, in a small apartment where he keeps all his money and jewels on the doorstep so thieves can find them but sleeps with his drawings under the mattress. He can sometimes be spotted down the street at his favorite bookstore, The Midtown Scholar, or around town drawing people, or on his roof watering his garden. If you tell him he has the best job in the world he will not disagree. His most recent book, This Is My Home, This Is My School, was published last Fall by FSG. Is it time to renew? shop.cricketmedia.com 1-800-821-0115…

Dear Everybuggy, I know I am the trillionth person to say this, but your mag rocks! My favorite buggy is Sluggo. I have four chickens and a gerbil. The chickens’ names are Flurry, Racer, Pookie, and Chicken Nugget. The gerbil’s name is Donut. My favorite books are The Hobbit and Adam of the Road. My favorite story so far is “Bigger Than Death” (October 2014). Thank you to all of the people who put their time and effort into making Cricket magazines. Never put down the pen. Rowan Hoover, age 11 Dallas, Texas Dear Marty, Sluggo, Cricket, etc., I love dogs. Pussywillow, you might think I’m crazy, because I am—crazy for dogs, at least. I have two dogs, one cat, six goats, just under seventy hens, three roosters, and eleven…

AS BEST AS I can recall, it all started when the cat sneezed. “Rain a-comin’,” said Granny. Now, that summer of nineteen-aught-eight was one of the driest in memory—even in Granny’s memory, and she was likely eighty years old. (I say likely because she never would admit to it.) “Rain?” I said. “There’s nary a cloud in the sky!” “Don’t matter,” says Granny. “A cat sneezin’ always means rain. My rheumatiz is worse’n usual, too.” “Yesterday,” said Daddy, “I seen one of the sows a-carryin’ a stick in her mouth.” Mama looked up from the bowl of peas she was shelling. “This mornin’ the coffee pot boiled over. Another sure sign of rain.” I sighed. “Them things got no basis at all in science.” I’d been going to school for…

T HE SOUND RIPPED through the air and jerked me awake. I covered my ears and curled my body into a tight ball, trying to hide from the noise exploding around me. Rain and hail drummed the roof. I pressed my hands even harder against my ears, but the drumbeats grew louder and louder every second. Rain splashed down sideways, smacking against the windows. The sky flashed with a ghostly light, and you just knew that right after that strange-looking light, the whole world was going to shake and quiver, open up and swallow you whole. I looked at Bobby. His eyes were wide and his body stiff as he stared out the car window. He hadn’t looked at me yet, but if he had, he would’ve seen me pushing…

“ MARY, WHAT ARE you doing out here on the riverbank?” “Watching the steamboat come in,” I said, turning my gaze from the river and glancing up at my mother. “Wasting time is more like it. Seems like ever since you finished high school all you do is daydream by the river.” “Ma, can I tell you a secret? I want to be a riverboat captain someday.” “That day will never come. Riverboat captains don’t wear petticoats, speaking of which, yours is showing. Hike it up! You’ll never catch a husband with it dangling down below your skirt. And hustle. You’re late.” I slipped into my father’s store through the back door, hoping he’d think I’d been working in the storage room. “I see you, Mary,” he said, putting the…

On August 7, 1807, Robert Fulton inaugurated the world’s first successful commercial steamboat service. Ridiculed by some as “Fulton’s Folly” while it was being built, Fulton’s boat, the Clermont, completed the 150-mile voyage from New York City to Albany in 32 hours, traveling at an average speed of 5 miles per hour. Fulton is often credited with inventing the steamboat, but an earlier steamboat, built by John Fitch, completed a successful trial on August 22, 1787. Propelled by steam-powered oars rather than a paddle wheel, one of Fitch’s steamboats began carrying passengers and freight on the Delaware River between Trenton, New Jersey, and Philadelphia in 1790. But Fitch’s business venture failed after just three trips. Before the age of trains or decent roads, the steamboat was critical to opening up…