Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens October 2015

I live in Moldova, a very small but beautiful fairy tale–like country in eastern Europe. (This explains why you’ve probably never heard of it.) I started drawing when I was very young. My father loved to paint, and he taught me everything he knew. I still remember my first “serious” work—an apple painted in watercolor. I was SO PROUD of it! Later I went to art school, but during summer vacation I was still roaming the hills on the backseat of my father’s motorcycle, searching for the perfect landscape to paint. He was my first teacher. He taught me to draw and to do it with love. I will always be grateful to him. I usually start my day with chocolate and a latte while reading my emails. Then I…

Dear Everybuggy, First off, Sluggo, keep on playing sports. Ladybug, quit being bossy! I like playing soccer. My two most favorite positions are right offense and goalie. Everyone seems to think I am the best player on my team; I think I have equals. I am also very good at baseball and basketball. I like running, riding my bike, Rollerblading, and pogo sticking. My favorite books are Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and the Tennis Shoes Adventure series by Chris Heimerdinger. I love to read. I really like bears and penguins. My favorite school subjects are math and science. Tater, what is your favorite kind of science? Will Shields, age 11 Manchester, New Hampshire I like most kinds of science, Will, but if I had to pick a favorite, I’d say…

Perhaps Tamitha ought to have suspected the little green woman who stood at the bridge—not because she was green (that might have been seasickness) and not because of her tattered clothes (Tamitha was no fancy dresser herself) but because of the sneaky way she shifted her eyes at Tamitha’s approach. Tamitha, however, was not a suspicious person, and while she was no dummy, she was not terribly observant. She tended to get lost in her own head. Now, for instance, as she approached the bridge on her way to town, she scarcely noticed the summer sun high and hot above her, or the way the birds piped as they wheeled through the bright blue air, or the ripples of tall grass that stretched into the distance on either side of…

To all of you who crawl and creep, who buzz and chirp and hoot and peep, who wake at dusk and throw off sleep: Welcome to the night. To you who make the forest sing, who dip and dodge on silent wing, who flutter, hover, clasp, and cling: Welcome to the night! Come feel the cool and shadowed breeze, come smell your way among the trees, come touch rough bark and leathered leaves: Welcome to the night. The night’s a sea of dappled dark, the night’s a feast of sound and spark, the night’s a wild, enchanted park. Welcome to the night!…

“ YOU ’ RE NOT THE only one,” Bobby’s father said as he drove their car very slowly and carefully through the empty streets. In spite of the fact that there were no other vehicles on the road, driving was still dangerous in this situation: his dad could hardly keep his eyes open. “There are at least a dozen other people in this part of the state who haven’t responded to the Hibernation Instinct.” Bobby’s mother hugged him with one arm while resting her head atop his own. For a moment, he thought that she had slipped off to sleep, but then she said in a warm, drowsy voice, “We thought that you would be. . . affected like your brother and sister. But, well, you’ve always been your own…

WHAT HAS NO eyes, ears, lungs, arms, or legs but has five hearts? No, it isn’t an alien from outer space. In fact, this creature may be living in your own backyard. It’s a night crawler, the common earthworm. The worm gets its name from the fact that it comes to the surface of the soil at night. Earthworms are herbivores. They eat decaying plant matter, which is in the soil they swallow as they burrow. They can eat up to one-third of their body weight in one day. How big an earthworm gets depends on the species of the worm, its age, diet, and environment. Canadian night crawlers, which are very popular with fishermen, can grow to be more than one foot in length. Night crawlers are invertebrates—they have…