Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2017 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

Jui Ishida was born in Taiwan, raised in Japan, and currently lives in Long Beach, California. She studied art at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and graduated with the honor of distinction in illustration. Jui draws her inspiration from nature and has illustrated many children’s books, including National Geographic Kids Animal Stories by Jane Yolen, The Silver Moon: Lullabies and Cradle Songs by Jack Prelutsky, and God Created by Mark Francisco Bozzuti-Jones, which won the Theologos Award for best children’s book of 2003.…

I CAN’T ABIDE living one more day in this pigpen!” I groaned and rolled out of bed to pull on my dress. My older sister, Dora, had complained of a cold all week, and the loft reeked from the remedies that Mama and Aunt Lula had concocted. A roasted onion lay half eaten in the middle of the floor. The mug of warm milk and crushed garlic sat spoiling on the bedside table, and Dora’s whiskey toddy had been accidentally sloshed over her blankets. All this, combined with the brimming slop jar, made the loft smell like the back alley of a saloon. Since Dora was supposed to rest, Mama stuck me with the chore of cleaning up after her every morning. I eyed Dora’s lumpy form lying under the…

James Hanger’s amputation may have been the first of the Civil War, but it was far from the last. Bullets and cannonballs shattered bones and sheared limbs throughout the brutal conflict. Surgeons often didn’t have time to do more than cut if they wanted to save a patient’s life. To lessen the risk of infection and to reduce blood loss, the operation was performed as soon and as quickly as possible. An amputation at or below the knee could be done in about three minutes. Amputation was the most common battlefield surgery. Surgeons performed about 60,000 in the four years of war. Only about 45,000 soldiers survived the operation. In 1862, poet Walt Whitman visited a Virginia hospital after the Battle of Fredericksburg. He wrote, “Outdoors, at the foot of…

Many years ago, I knew a parrot just like Asha. As the daughter of a relief and development public health doctor, I began my life in the small country of Bangladesh, near India. But it was while I was living in Kenya as a teenager that I met my first African grey parrot. Ituri (which means “sweet-smelling” in Swahili) lived in a spacious cage at my friend Kara Robinson’s house. Ituri enjoyed a truly sweet life. He exercised daily, ate lots of fresh fruit, especially sweet papayas, and greeted visitors as they walked in the door. He had a wily, mischievous streak, too. One afternoon as I watched, Ituri thrust his head out between the cage bars and gave Cookie, the Robinsons’ cat, a sharp nip on the tail. Cookie…

It’s “Summer Recess,” at last! Time for wiggling your toes in the sand, eating ice cream, and taking a long break from homework, tests, and school. Sluggo intends to spend every day playing baseball. (It takes him most of the afternoon just to run to first base.) And Pudding is directing Summer Shakespeare in the Park (starring Ladybug Macbeth, with George and Tail as Romeo and Juliet, Pussywillow as Puck, and Cricket as the Fool). For this month’s art contest, everybuggy wants to see your best drawing of your favorite thing to do—or that you wish you could do—during the summer. Maybe you would love to swim with the sea turtles, like Alexa in “Swim Buddies.” Or go on a long trip with your family to visit a national park.…

TO FIND YOUR way in a voyaging canoe you must be able to feel the sea. That’s what Kilolani says. My mother says you need to have the magic—magic that comes from the stars above and the sea below. She says Kilolani has that magic. When I ask my father about this, he doesn’t answer. He just closes his eyes and shakes his head slowly. Father doesn’t speak of Kilolani, and he doesn’t want me to speak of him. I don’t understand why. I like Kilolani. I like the way he stands near the bow, feet planted wide apart, swaying with the up and down of the swells. The cold spray sometimes slaps him cruelly, dripping from his matted gray hair, creating little rivers on his shoulders and across the…

I LEAN OVER the side of the catamaran and peer into the crystal blue water. This is my last chance, I think. “I hope you find one today, Alexa,” Dad says, as if reading my thoughts. “Me, too,” my brother, Jonah, says. “I want to see one, too!” I lift my head up, turn toward Jonah, and glare. Why, why, why does he always insist on following me everywhere, doing everything I do? Make your own friends, I want to scream at him. Find your own green sea turtle! But I don’t say it. I don’t say anything. Ever since Jonah was a little kid and they discovered the reason he acts so different is because he has autism, I’ve been trained to make allowances for him. Trained to put…

THE CIVIL WAR was only a few weeks old when seven hundred and fifty Confederate recruits gathered in the fields around Philippi, Virginia. It was early June 1861, and as yet there had been no real battles. The men had eagerly volunteered, but most had no training as soldiers. Their only weapons were the ones they brought from home—old-fashioned flintlock muskets, cap and ball pistols, and a few shotguns. Among them was an eighteen-year-old college student named James Edward Hanger. When two of his older brothers signed up to fight for the South, James was determined to follow their example. His mother said she’d only allow her youngest boy to go to war if he joined the same company as his brothers. So James headed to the Confederate camp at…

The people who would become the Polynesians likely came from New Guinea, near Australia, and moved out into the ocean to the islands nearby around 1500 BC. By AD 1000, Polynesians had settled an enormous triangle of Pacific islands, from Hawai’i in the north, to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the southeast, to New Zealand in the southwest. The Polynesians used large double-hulled canoes equipped with V-shaped sails and oars, and steered by a long steering oar, to cross the vast spaces within the triangle. These voyaging canoes were capable of carrying two dozen people, along with their livestock, food, and planting supplies. The twin hulls, like those of a modern catamaran, gave the vessel stability for the sea voyages. The ancient Polynesian navigators did not use instruments to help…