Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2022 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

“Skating in the Park” watercolor on paper, digital I am a trained and practicing architect as well as a children’s and editorial illustrator. I grew up in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and studied architecture in college in New York. I am inspired by cities, and also by fantasy, possibility, and imagination. My favorite thing to do in the winter is to go skating in Central Park in New York. It is a magical place, especially when it snows.…

I WAS FORBIDDEN to climb rocks. Rock climbing was the first step, and my mother knew it. My father’s friends could’ve taught me what I needed to know, but she wouldn’t allow it. She didn’t know that I went anyway. I taught myself the basics on boulders and small rockfaces, learned about handholds and toeholds and balance. Later, I met up with people who taught me more. By the time I was fifteen, I was climbing regularly. I bought gear and hid it from her, keeping some of it at my friend Scott’s house. I stashed the rest in a box in the garage labeled “old clothes.” MY FATHER NAMED me Everest. People are always asking if I’m named after the mountain. “That’s right,” I tell them. I don’t go…

H OW DO YOU like your Nuremberg Eggs? Boiled? Scrambled? Sunnyside up? Ah, but these amazing eggs can’t be eaten. They’re very rare, priceless, and more than four hundred years old. “Nuremberg Egg” is the nickname for the first portable watch. Peter Henlein, a locksmith in the ancient city of Nuremberg, Germany, hatched the “Egg” sometime in the 1500s. Until then, heavy iron weights hanging from chains kept clocks running. Pocket watches didn’t exist, and people who couldn’t see the town clock or couldn’t hear the watchman call out the hours had little idea what time it was. There must have been a lot of missed appointments! Henlein, a marvelous craftsman, discovered how to make a clock small enough to carry. His secret? He invented the mainspring, a coil of…

Hi, Everybuggy, I have just received my very first Cricket magazine and I love it! My favorite book series are The Happy Hollisters mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, A to Z Mysteries, and Gone-Away Lake. I really like mysteries! Ladybug and Pussywillow, I like cookie dough ice cream. What flavors do you like? I like reading comic books, especially Calvin and Hobbes. I like coloring, especially drawing foxes, and I like horses. Mollybug Roanoke, Virginia Dear Mollybug, I like chocolate chip, chocolate chip cookie dough, mocha chip, and mint chip! Love, Ladybug Dear Cricket, I think you’re awesome and wanted to tell you that I have a whole bunch of your magazines! I got my first one on my birthday (July 27) in 2019! Say hello to Ladybug and all your…

BRIACA WOKE TO the sound of her mother grinding wheat flour, the scraping noise setting her teeth on edge. Then she remembered. It had been a year since her father had disappeared, and today he would be declared officially dead. Her throat tightened with grief. Each day she had scanned the horizon for his ship returning, and each day she had walked back to their hut, dejected and despairing. “Get up, Briaca,” her mother said gently. “The druids have kindled the fire.” Through the open door of their hut, Briaca could see smoke rising from the nearby hill. The fire would grow with the increasing sound of spells and prayers until her father’s spirit was released at sunset. Then her uncle would be voted the new chief. How had he…

First prize 10 and under Logan Navar, age 10 Boulder, UT The Birthday Dragon It was an unusual birthday. Colorful banners blanketed the backyard. Kids chased each other through the grass. Adults talked. It all went downhill from there. My little sister was turning five. On her birthday cake, painted in frosting, was a fat, pink Daisy the Friendly Dragon, a character from her favorite TV show. At least it’ll taste good, I thought, as the tug-of-war for little kids ended. I, as her older brother, got the honor of cutting the cake. But when the knife touched the cake, something that sounded like thunder and looked like an emerald supernova exploded, shooting outward from the cake! When the dust cleared, standing before us was something like a thirty-foot-long, bright…

THE CAFETERIA CONVERSATION was all about hockey again. Jade usually fit in with the sports crowd, but now she was the odd one out. She stared out the window and let her mind drift like the whirling snow to a soccer field in sunny California. Hazel elbowed her in the side. “When are you going to get out on the ice, Jade?” Hazel turned to the others at the table. “Jade was a soccer star at her old school. I’m lobbying her to take up hockey.” Back in California, the only ice was in tiny frozen puddles. Here in Minnesota, it seemed everyone skated like a pro by the time they got to kindergarten. Jade didn’t have skates, and she couldn’t make it to open skating time because she had…

The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart This is one of my all-time favorite books. It’s about a boy who finds a mysterious watch on a ledge of a building with no windows, about twenty feet up. He then goes on an adventure to find out where it came from. Crookshanks Blab About Books, Chatterbox The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew, Book 1) by Carolyn Keene In this mystery, Nancy Drew is looking for an old clock to find a new will. Nancy’s father, Carson Drew, is a lawyer. As Nancy looks for the new will, she meets two young girls and quickly becomes friends with them. If she finds the new will, she will be able to help many people. This book is a breathtaking mystery! Caitlin…

A SPINE-CHILLING SWEAT rolled down twelve-year-old Pleasant’s back. As the long line of enslaved men, women, and children shuffled toward the big ship in Richmond harbor, his grandmother’s frightening stories flew into his mind, forcing a low sob to escape his thin lips. Grandma’s African name had been Adjwoa, which means peace. She had enjoyed a good life as one of the daughters of the chief in her small village. The day she was captured she had been farming in the fields on her own. Later, she was chained in the belly of a big boat with people she did not know. They lay on wooden planks head to toe, like shoes in a shoe box. There was not enough room to sit up, only roll over. The tight chains…