Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2018 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

I was born and raised in sunny Southern California. In the summertime my father used to round up my siblings and the neighborhood kids and haul us to the beach, where we would swim, explore the tide pools, chase seagulls, and catch hermit crabs. Sadly, none of the poor crabs survived, but not for my lack of trying to nurture them as pets! Now I live in northern California. Although the ocean temperature is colder than in San Diego, I still enjoy spending time exploring tide pools and searching for starfish and sea anemones. Happily, the seagulls and hermit crabs no longer have to hide from me—I’m content to leave them be and simply admire them. Is it time to renew? shop.cricketmedia.com 1-800-821-0115…

When baby sea turtles first hit the ocean, they swim for twenty-four hours or more. Then the baby loggerheads born on Florida’s Gulf Coast catch a ride on strong ocean currents that carry them around the southern tip of Florida. The turtles swim north along the Atlantic Coast until the currents take a right turn and carry them further out into the ocean to what is called the Sargasso Sea, where there are vast mats of floating Sargassum seaweed. The young turtles hide out in the seaweed for years, feeding on tiny shrimp and other organisms. Marine scientists call this time the “lost years,” because there’s a lot of ocean out there and not much turtle data. Around the age of thirty-five, the females—now weighing about 250 pounds—return to the…

THERE ARE MANY myths about the American Revolutionary War. One you may have heard is that a woman named Molly Pitcher was the only woman to have fought alongside men during that conflict. But that’s not true. In fact, a person named “Molly Pitcher” didn’t even exist. One woman, however, did serve for most of two years in the Continental Army. Deborah Sampson was the only female soldier to fight the British under George Washington, and she was the first woman to serve officially in America’s armed forces. Deborah was born in Plympton, Massachusetts, near Plymouth, on December 17, 1760. She was fifth of the seven children of Jonathan and Deborah Sampson. One of her ancestors was William Bradford, a strong-willed Pilgrim leader who sailed on the Mayflower and was…

I KNEW IT would be too dark to see anything except fireflies in the pasture, but I was too fizzy with excitement to sleep. So I spent the night tossing and turning and thrashing the bedcovers until the birds sang the sky awake at dawn. Throwing on my clothes and shoving my feet into my boots, I ran outside to check on my new horse. He was a wild mustang from the mountains of Wyoming, captured by the Bureau of Land Management—the BLM is the government agency that monitors wild horse populations—when his herd management area no longer had enough food or water to sustain all the horses in his herd. I’d found his picture online when he was offered for adoption over the Internet. He was a beautiful bay—his…

Everybuggy has dreams inside them of cool things they would like to do. In “The Pearl Inside,” Nami dreams of becoming an ama pearl diver. In “America’s First Woman Soldier,” Deborah Sampson fulfills her dream of joining the Continental Army, even though she must disguise herself as a man to do so. In this month’s contest, everybuggy would love to see your best art inspired by a dream you have inside you. Perhaps you’ll be inspired by what you want to be when you grow up, or a place you want to visit or explore one day. Maybe you dream of rescuing endangered animals, like Keisha in “On Sea Turtle Patrol,” or riding a wild mustang, as Lacey does in “Carrots for Ranger.” Perhaps your dream is to meet some…

THE FIRST WEEK of my summer vacation was exciting, my sense of freedom so intense it felt like I had to cram everything into that single week. The next week was a little calmer. But by the third week my two best friends had left for summer camp and my activities wound down into boredom. Getting up later each morning, I was spending more and more time with my iPhone and in front of the TV. That’s when Mom reacted, declaring my iPhone and the TV off limits between 6:00 in the morning and 6:00 at night. It was shocking just to hear her say it. In that first hour I felt I’d lost my senses of sight and hearing. The silence was numbing. I circled the house, going from…

A SHADOWY WOLF-LIKE figure darted by in the distance as my eyes veered low and left. Alone in the library parking lot, I stared down at my phone, shaking my head. No message. The familiar knot in my stomach tightened. “Where R u?” I typed. My breath smacked my throat and I jumped back as a red Subaru wagon screeched to a halt. The driver’s window rolled down. “Sorry I’m late, Paloma,” Julia said. “I was in a meeting with one of my grad students.” Julia is my cousin, once removed, which basically means she’s my mom’s first cousin. She’s a professor at the university in town. “I was getting a little worried you weren’t coming to pick me up.” I opened the back door and threw my backpack in.…

WHAT YOU’LL NEED: 8 ounces blueberries 8 ounces strawberries 2 bananas 3 cups milk 1 cup half-and-half 3/4 cup sugar 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 21/4 cups crushed ice (or 3 cups ice cubes) 6 tall serving glasses blender WHAT TO DO: 1. Rinse, drain, and stem blueberries and strawberries, then peel bananas and cut into chunks. Refrigerate fruits until needed. 2. In blender, combine 1 cup milk, 1/3 cup half-and-half, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and blueberries. Add 3/4 cup crushed ice on top and ask an adult to blend. Slowly pour into 6 tall serving glasses as a first layer and put them in a freezer for mixture to set (15 minutes or more). Rinse blender and dry. 3. In blender, combine 1 cup milk, 1/3 cup…