Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

Have we missed your favorite first sentence? Send it to Cricket/Favorite First Sentences, P.O. Box 300, Peru, IL 61354. Please include only one sentence and be sure to write your complete name and address on the letter. Or send your favorite first sentence to: cricket@cricketmedia.com “Brendan Walker knew the house was going to be terrible.”HOUSE OF SECRETS by Chris Columbus submitted by Blakely Bresee of Gresham, OR “The truth is, she was ornery, and stubborn, wouldn’t listen to anybody, and selfish beyond selfish, and filthy, caked with mud and dust, and moody: you’d better watch it or she’d knock you flat.”MOO by Sharon Creech submitted by Esmé Barnstead Pickel of Rockville, MD “It was the summer Rosemary Bliss turned ten that she saw her mother fold a lightning bolt…

WINNERS NOVEMBER 2017 ART CONTEST Celebrate the Season First prize 10 and under Morgan Norris, age 8 Birmingham, AL First prize 11 and up Sophia Bitter, age 12 Dubuque, IA First prize 10 and under Ishani Singh, age 10 Holmdel, NJ Second prize 10 and under Ella Joshi, age 10 Alexandria, VA First prize 10 and under Avery Yang, age 10 St. James, NY Second prize 10 and under Anusha Naik, age 9 Acton, MA Second prize 10 and under Sripoorva Prasanna, age 6 Bettendorf, IA Third prize 10 and under Kavita Amin, age 10 Princeton, NJ Second prize 11 and up Henry Richards, age 12 Rexburg, ID Third prize 10 and under Milla Duca, age 10 New York, NY Snowman Wonderland Third prize 10 and under Taylor Hurt, age…

“THE KNIGHT OF the Sable Plume will enter the lists!” The young man rode a black horse. He was dressed all in black, from his hand-tooled boots to the plume floating from his wide-brimmed hat. In his right hand he carried an eight-foot lance. At the Grand Marshall’s signal, the rider spurred his horse toward the course of wooden posts, each hung with a two-inch brass ring. As he raced past, he caught up one–two–three rings with the tip of his lance. The crowd burst into cheers. The Knight of the Sable Plume had won the tournament! Does this sound like the Middle Ages to you? Pat Zettner of San Antonio, Texas, wrote me a letter telling me that such jousting tournaments were popular in Texas during the…

Dear Everybuggy, I love your magazine so much! I love all your stories and how much creativity you put into them. I am in Girl Scouts and take Irish dance, creative writing, and drama. I love acting, drawing, singing, dancing, reading, cooking, sewing, and being outdoors. I also love to write. I love everybuggy, especially Ladybug and Cricket. You guys would be so cute together! And you shouldn’t be mean to Ugly Bird. He’s just misunderstood, that’s all. In fact, once you get to know him, he’s probably not even ugly at all. Erica L., age 12 Chattanooga, Tennessee Dear Cricket, I really love your mag. It’s awesome! I think everything about it is awesome. All the stories are great. Old Cricket is my fave buggy, but they are all…

I WAS A ninth grader in a school for girls. Sister Martha was the English teacher—young, full of enthusiasm. “The senior class puts on an annual play,” she said to us one day. “Why not the freshmen, too? I think you girls are the perfect class to start the tradition!” I rolled my eyes. Perfect class? After six months, our class had the reputation of being troublesome. At the heart of the problem was a sassy clique of girls who had their own slang, played tricks on the rest of us, and did the minimum work to keep from failing. My friends and I were serious about schoolwork and followed school rules. Sister Martha chirped on. “For St. Patrick’s Day, we’ll perform Her Ladyship Was Irish. It’s about a nineteenth-century…

Fifteen-year-old Nodi longs to go on raids with his pirate father, Polyonus, but his lameness is a drawback. Even though his father says, “Maybe next time,” Nodi is frustrated at always having to stay behind with his mother, Mana, and his sister, Sara. Polyonus and his crew, Alec and Petri, launch their raids from a secluded island cove in the Mediterranean. Out on the water, they board Roman ships, taking prisoners and plunder. One stormy day, the pirates return with four captives. One is a cocky Roman boy who introduces himself as Gaius. With him are an older Greek man who appears to be a tutor and two blond men. “Put all the prisoners in our house for now,” Polyonus instructs Nodi. Inside the shelter, Gaius and the older man…

SCENE 1: KILITH’S CASTLE NARRATOR: Once upon a time, there was a king named Kilith and his son, Kuluch. KULUCH: It’s pronounced Kuh-luch. The ch sounds like a cat hissing. NARRATOR: Kuh-LUCK. KULUCH: KUH-luchhhh. NARRATOR: KUH-luck. KULUCH: Close enough. NARRATOR: Kuluch’s mother had died when he was very young, and he lived on a farm with pigs. KULUCH: The pigs take very good care of me. You know, pigs are very intelligent, and . . . NARRATOR: Yes, yes. Kuluch grew up to be a fine young man, and his dad remarried. STEPMOTHER: So, Kilith, I hear you have a son. NARRATOR: Kuluch’s evil stepmother . . . STEPMOTHER: Hey, just because I’m a stepmother doesn’t mean I’m evil. NARRATOR: Fair enough. Kuluch’s stepmother wanted Kuluch to marry her daughter.…