Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2024 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

“A Midwinter Midnight” gouache and ink on paper I grew up in Pennsylvania, where there was a creek by my house. Sometimes in the winter the creek would freeze over, and many of the families who lived nearby would come to skate on it. It was fun to skate during the day, but it was like being in another world to skate at night. Ever since then I have loved to go outside at night in the winter—in the snow or on the ice. I now live in Seattle, Washington, where I am a painter and illustrator. I love to make things: paintings, stories, soup, and bread. In the painting on this Cricket’s cover, I tried to show the feeling of the winter world at night—even though I have never…

PART 1 KADLIN SAW the seabird’s nest a moment before her brother, Bjorn, did. She parted the reeds and scooped up the eggs. “I filled mine first!” She raised the basket she had decorated with bits of colorful yarn for egg hunt day and howled to the sky like a berserker. Bjorn laughed. “You sound like Uncle Grimolf.” Their father’s brother was a quiet, gentle soul, but according to the tales they overheard their father tell, Uncle Grimolf sometimes turned into a wolf-man during battle. Kadlin’s heart beat faster at the thought of her father and uncle returning in their longship. Yesterday, Grandmother Thora had cast her runes and learned from the signs that the men’s homeward journey would soon come to a favorable end. Mother had been so relieved,…

ONCE UPON A time, in a remote village high in the mountains, lived a sheik and his wife, who loved each other dearly. The sheik’s frail and sickly wife was expecting a child, and when the time came for the baby to be born, a fierce snowstorm raged and snow fell heavily for miles and miles. So heavily, in fact, that the man could not go in search of the doctor who might have saved his wife’s life. She died with her newborn daughter in her arms after naming her Thaljiyeh, which means “snow maiden.” For a long time, the sheik was inconsolable over the death of his wife. He took no notice of his beautiful daughter, who was looked after by her maternal grandmother. Thaljiyeh grew into a kind…

SOME KIDS play sports. They strap on their gear, run hundreds of laps, and tackle, kick, or swing. The athletic field is their domain. Some kids do makeover parties. They pool their fashion magazines and organize their own spa hair salons. Their French braids rival those twisted by the dexterous (d-e-x-t-r-u-s is how I spelled it in fourth grade) hands of professional stylists. And some kids are computer geeks. Their programming ingenuity (i-n-g-e-n-i-u-t-y, or so I thought a couple of years ago) is a thing of wonder. Me? I have the spelling bee. The bee is my World Series. I train every day on my front steps after school, the dictionary pages rippling softly in the breeze. I build up my musculature (once I spelled it m-u-s-c-u-l-a-c-h-u-r . . .…

PERSEPHONE DASHED down the corridors of Decider Academy, the folds of her flowing robe undulating behind her. She was late. Every tenth step the cloth came between her foot and the pavement and she shuffled and fumbled to regain her balance before gravity overcame her momentum. She cursed the labyrinthine design of the school—what was the point of trying to make a new building look like an ancient university? Orbis Publica, the young world government, held tight to the past despite the new future they were building. Fifty years of global peace had given them a lot of leeway with the public, but it didn’t hurt to dress the new society up as the next great step for humanity instead of some departure from the norm. So Decider Academy looked…

MY NAME IS Enheduanna. I was named after the courageous priestess who fought invaders to save the sacred temple of Inanna, our city’s powerful goddess of love and war. Enheduanna was also a magnificent poet who wrote about her epic adventures. My mama calls me Heddy. I wish to be a poet and priestess like the brave woman I am named after. But I am too frightened of the goddess’s great ziggurat, the massive stone pyramid that is home to the most holy of our temples and whose very name inspires terror and awe. I live in Ur in the Fertile Crescent, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Ur is wealthier and more advanced than other cities in Mesopotamia. We have irrigation canals, wheeled vehicles, and brick walls. But it’s…

Blue and crunchyat the feet of treesin deep woods.Or wedgedagainst porch stepsand swinging kitchen doorsthat creak in gustsof wintery wind.Snow crunchyas glittery glassin nighttimealley waysand moon-buffedparking lotsonce pitchy blackand summer hot.Broken snowzipperedby bird toesand tiny deer heart tracksand sprinklesof mice feet like blueforget-me-nots.Oh, yes,I like an old snowlike scattered drifts of continentsand bits of roadsand frozen seasand ships of cloudswhere wingslike sweeps of broomsfly stilland paws and claws and shoeswalk everywheretogether.…