Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2020 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

“The Shackleton Expedition: Endurance” photograph When explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set off on his ill-fated expedition to Antarctica in 1914, he took along with him Australian photographer Frank Hurley to document the astonishing adventure. For nearly two years, Hurley shared the extreme hardships of the stranded crew when Shackleton’s ship Endurance became trapped in the ice. The men said he was like “a warrior with his camera”— climbing the mast for a self-portrait, using flash powder to photograph the frozen ship in the endless darkness, diving into the icy water to rescue his films when the Endurance sank, and living on penguin and seal meat. Left behind on Elephant Island, he photographed Shackleton’s departure and the unbelievable moment when the rescue ship appeared on the horizon four months later. One…

Cautiously, Prince Bernard lifted his saddle from the wall. Just a buckle’s jingle or the straw crackling beneath his boots might give him away. “Good afternoon, Your Highness. Are you taking Bright Star for a ride?” Would he never escape? Suppressing a groan, the prince said, “Shh! Yes, but please don’t tell anyone you saw me.” Paul Lebrun had been working in the royal stable since the king was Bernard’s age and had taught the young prince all he knew about riding and caring for horses. Chuckling, he reached for Bright Star’s bridle. “Let me guess. Are you dodging Signor Romano?” Placing the saddle on his horse, the prince rolled his eyes as he adjusted its girth. “Four hours I spent standing as still as a statue for that artist.…

“It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.”— Ernest Shackleton EXPLORER SIR ERNEST Shackleton was growing impatient. It had been four months since his ship, the Endurance, made its August 1, 1915, departure from London. He had planned only a brief stop at South Georgia, a desolate island eight hundred miles east of the tip of South America. But unusually heavy ice conditions in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea forced him to wait a month on South Georgia in hopes that conditions would improve. It was already December—midsummer in the Southern Hemisphere. Shackleton needed to set out for Antarctica during the summer’s long hours of sunlight. Waiting too long could jeopardize the entire expedition. Twice, Antarctica’s…

You could fill a museum with the art and artists featured in Cricket stories this month. Maartje’s father creates a beautiful sculpture of her mother in “The Girl in the Windmill.” Princess Yu-lan falls in love with the commoner Pei when he sketches her portrait in “Three Impossible Tasks.” And Prince Bernard hooks his own reflection in his comical attempt to escape the royal portrait painter in “Be Careful What You Fish For.” For this month’s contest, everybuggy would like to read your best story about a work of art or an artist. Perhaps you will write about a famous sculptor or painter you admire from history. Or you might instead tell a story about an unknown artist trying to sell his or her first painting. Maybe you will write…

THE SHOPS OF Hepu were filled with fresh goods. Trees were trimmed, streets swept. City gates were refurbished. Why? The new governor general and his family were soon to take up residence in the city. Hepu’s Buddhist temple, especially popular for its lovely statue of Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, was also being refurbished. Guanyin radiated all that was gentle, graceful, and compassionate. People prayed to her and left offerings and donations, which the monks used to keep the temple in good repair. With the impending arrival of the governor general, the monks hired a young artist to decorate the temple’s wooden beams and repaint the chipped and faded artwork. Pei was overjoyed to have gotten the job, his first major commission. Once well along in his work, he noticed…

MAARTJE VAN DIJK lived in a windmill. At the age of ten, her vater and moeder perished at sea, and she was sent to live with her Opa on the coast. Despite her grief she grew to love him, and he taught her all about how to grind the village’s grains and tend the enormous sails and gears that made the mill run. Her Opa hadn’t always run the mill, though. Each evening, by firelight, he would show Maartje the amazing feats of transformation that he used to perform all over the world. “Oh, please do the mouse again,” Maartje would plead, and Opa would smile broadly at his one-person audience and twitch his nose. His thick, white mustache would grow thinner and wispier, and his ears would grow larger…

I think it strange and almost sad That just as we begin to add A jacket, coat or furry hat Trees do the opposite of that The wind blows sharp; the leaves fall down As breezes shred each autumn gown The quaking trees, from tops to toes Blush red and gold, then drop their clothes The more the chill, the more they bare Stripped down to wooden underwear While we are covered head to toes Why should they shed their lovely clothes?…