Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2021 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

“A Family of Alaskan Moose” Mixed media, dry brush, ink, watercolor, and digital. Jed Alexander is an author and illustrator who has done a number of illustrations for Cricket in the past, including a story he wrote himself, “Blackbeard’s Ghost.” His first book for children is Red, from Cameron + Company, a wordless retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Its sequel, Gold, will be released in 2022 from Creston Books. He lives in Davis, California, with his wife and best friend in the world, Regina, and the best dog in the world, Cinderpants. Is it time to renew? shop.cricketmedia.com 1-800-821-0115…

Tolin lives on Arrhinsal, an island that floats in the sky two miles above the land below. One day, while hunting in the maze of tunnels that run through the island’s thick hedges, he encounters a girl who, her sword raised, has turned to face a huge hedgeboar. He urges her to run instead, and to escape with him into a tunnel too small for the boar to follow. The girl, Brilley, is from the Castle—a high-walled fortress in the middle of Arrhinsal—where her mother is a mathematician and her father a librarian. Castlers call villagers like Tolin, who live outside the castle walls, Wilders. Tolin is suspicious of Castlers, but Brilley assures him that she has come into the hedge looking for someone like him. Arrhinsal is in danger…

THE WINTER OF 1933. Some remember that time as the depths of the Great Depression. But I remember it for something else. Life, as we knew it, had ground to a halt in our small town in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon. When the bank failed, lots of folks found themselves penniless. Timber and farming drove our economy, and hundreds of men were idled when the sawmills shut down for lack of orders. Most stores were boarded up. Hoboes dropped off freight trains and wandered into town, searching for work or just a meal. Parents never had to mention starving kids overseas to get us to clean our plates, because kids right on our block ate things like library paste, crayons, even soap—and then got violently ill. All around…

When Martin Phelps’s eighty-year-old Aunt Maude comes for a visit, she stays in his room with her dog, Sir Puff, while Martin sleeps on the living room couch. Martin awakens in the middle of the night to see a weird green light and wisps of smoke coming from his bedroom door. He hears three tremendous thumps, and when he creeps down the hall to investigate, hears Aunt Maud mumbling, “Fool, fool! You confounded fool!” As he tiptoes back to the living room, he thinks to himself that his aunt either has some terrific secret, or is just a little bit crazy. The next morning, when his mother and Aunt Maud are out of the house, Martin is finally able to get into his room to play his favorite online game,…

’Tis the season for gathering with family and friends for holiday feasting, giving thanks, and counting our blessings. Many holiday traditions include exchanging gifts with our loved ones to bring them joy and show our respect and affection. For this month’s contest, everybuggy would love to read your best poem about a gift. Maybe you will write about the happiness and surprise of receiving a gift that you have long hoped for but never really expected. Or you might write about a gift that is small but very meaningful, like snow angel mittens; or a gift that doesn’t cost money, like learning your grandfather’s favorite song on the piano, or a gift you make yourself, or welcoming a special visitor at Thanksgiving, or the gift of a new friendship. Perhaps…

THERE WAS A man named Halli who lived on the rugged coast of Iceland. He raised a few sheep and grew a little hay in the meadows. He caught fish in the sea, and he climbed the jagged cliffs for seabird eggs. His house was a frame of driftwood covered with thick turf, with a tall ridge leaning over it to shield it from the wind that blew almost always. Sometimes the fish buyer in the town would say to him, when Halli piloted his little boat along the coast to sell his catch, “Why don’t you move to the village, Halli? Surely it’s no kind of a life out there on your own in the wild. Wouldn’t you rather go out to sea with the other fishing boats for…

Jimmy brushed cobwebs off his grandpa’s hand-hewn dogsled. He packed the canvas basket with the usual gear: long-handled ax, cold-weather sleeping bag, headlamp with extra batteries, self-contained smoke flare, and socks knitted from muskox hair. His camera fit snugly in a beaver-tail mitten. Jimmy’s grandpa held out a newspaper-wrapped bundle tied with twine. “Smoked salmon,” he said. “And pickled seagull eggs.” “Nakurmilk.” Jimmy used the Inuit word for thank you. His grandpa’s thick mustache twitched. “Llaaili.” Jimmy knew it meant you are welcome. He liked staying with his grandpa whenever his parents fished for Pacific cod and walleye pollock in the Bering Sea. Ancient spears hung on the cabin walls beside bearskin pants from the early days. There was always the smoky smell of something good cooking. “Try to get…