Indholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2021 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

Dear Everybuggy, I love your mag! I get it from my cousins, who grew up with Spider. I am in my first year of track, but this is my fourth year of cross-country. I used to play the violin, but I’m such an active person I couldn’t handle sitting for an hour or two! My favorite book series is Wings of Fire. I have an old dog who just turned eighteen. My older brother (he’s twelve) got a malamute. He has a red paw, so his name is—you guessed it—Red! I’m hoping for a beagle. My little sister helped come up with names. My favorite is Quinn. Hailey, age 11 Longmont, Colorado Hello! I joined Chatterbox after I got my first Cricket magazine. Chatterbox is awesome! I have a pet…

The great explorer Captain James Cook stepped ashore in Australia in 1770 and claimed it for Britain. He saw no land being farmed by the native inhabitants. To an Englishman this meant nobody owned the land, and therefore it was free to take. Except, two hundred years later, Captain Cook was proved wrong. The Hunter-Gatherer Puzzle Australia’s Aboriginal peoples were traditionally hunters and gatherers. Men fished, and hunted large game such as kangaroo and wallaby. Women hunted small animals such as lizards, and gathered plants and seeds. But a young archaeologist, Rhys Jones, became baffled when studying Aboriginal culture in the 1960s. How, he wondered, had these people survived by hunting and gathering alone, especially in one of the most desolate landscapes on earth? In his view it was impossible!…

First prize 10 and under Guadalupe T., age 9 Lutherville, MD Hawaii Dreaming First prize 10 and under Niso K., age 9 Los Angeles, CA First prize 11 and up Rina L., age 13 Pittsboro, NC American White Ibis Second prize 10 and under Giada A., age 9 New Milford, CT Second prize 10 and under Gwyneth D., age 10 Morrilton, AR Second prize 10 and under Presley B., age 10 Chagrin Falls, OH Second prize 11 and up Carl M., age 12 Gaithersburg, MD Orb Weaver Spider Second prize 11 and up Delaney B., age 12 Thousand Oaks, CA A Seed’s Beauty Second prize 11 and up Nadia K., age 11 Tenants Harbor, ME Double Rainbow over Rockland Maine Harbor Third prize 10 and under Evelyn B., age 8…

TODAY MY NIGHTMARE came true. It was Bo. I first met Bo when I volunteered to be a junior docent at the zoo. It was a summer program our school participated in, where biology students earned extra credit by teaching little kids about some of the animals. I needed to bring up my biology grade, so I asked my friend Sue Wang to be my partner. “Melanie, I’ll do this with you,” she said, “but I’ll do the talking. No way will I handle the animals!” That was OK with me. I like animals. During the training course, our instructor, Mr. Lindsey, talked to each pair of docents about the animals we would take to summer recreation programs and classes at year-round schools. When he came to Sue and me,…

A country woman in a coarse cotton skirt and a large calico bonnet hurried along the dark streets of Richmond, Virginia, her chubby cheeks puffing from exertion. Pausing beneath a blooming magnolia tree, she glanced behind her, then stepped quickly across the manicured lawn and gardens surrounding one of the most elegant homes in the city. Slipping inside the Van Lew mansion, the woman underwent a transformation. She threw off her bonnet to unveil fashionably styled hair and discarded her country clothes for the taffeta dress of a fine lady. Reaching inside her mouth, she pulled out wads of cotton. Her chubby cheeks deflated, revealing a thin, birdlike face. Disguising her true identity was how Elizabeth Van Lew survived during the Civil War. Unlike other Southerners, Elizabeth detested slavery. She…

Camp by Kayla Miller Olive and Willow, two BFFs, are going to a two-week sleepaway camp in the summer. Olive is excited to meet new people, while Willow is the opposite. When Olive quickly bonds with the other campers, Willow is left jealous and alone. A fight soon jeopardizes their friendship. Will they still be friends by the end of camp? This graphic novel teaches readers that making new friends doesn’t come easy for everybody. HorseGirl, age 11 via Chatterbox Summer of the Gypsy Moths by Sara Pennypacker Stella lives with her great-aunt Louise and a foster kid named Angel. Suddenly, Louise dies, and they are left to fend for themselves. A man named George expects Louise to take care of four summer cottages nearby, but she is dead, so…

IF YOU’RE LOOKING to adopt 60,000 low-maintenance pets, then honeybees are the perfect friends for you. Even your mom might approve! Other pets rely on humans for everything—warmth, protection, exercise and play, food and water, and the most-dreaded “duty,” poop cleanup. Since honeybees take care of themselves in virtually every way, beekeeping is mostly a stewardship. This means that the beekeeper will just watch over and protect the bees. After the first spring inspection, a good beekeeper will check on them once every three to four weeks through the summer and fall, until it’s time to extract, or take out, the honey. When most people think of beehives, they picture a skep beehive, which is like a round basket woven from grass. But most beekeepers no longer use this type…

LONG AGO IN the Dreamtime of Australia’s Wurundjeri people, seven sisters possessed fire that they would not share. They carried the fire as glowing coals in the ends of their digging sticks, and never did those digging sticks leave their hands. The sisters used their fire to cook yams, lizards, and fish. All other beings in the land had to eat their food raw: raw roots, raw eel, and raw meat. Then one day the sisters made a careless mistake. They finished their meal and spread sand over the ashes of their secret cooking place. They hadn’t noticed a small yam left behind in the ashes. But young Crow spotted it. He had sharp eyes, and an even sharper curiosity. The instant the sisters left, Crow swooped down and pecked…

BUSY AS A bee. Make a beeline for home. Have you heard these old sayings? Just watch a honeybee zoom from flower to flower; then, when it has gathered all the nectar it can carry, watch it head home to its hive in a straight line—without any detours. My friend Dorothy Morgan tells me that many thousands of years ago, home for a honeybee was probably a nest in an isolated dry cave or in a hollow tree. After people developed a taste for honey eight or ten thousand years ago, they began robbing the honey from bees’ nests. But the nests were in inconvenient places, and humans began to think about moving the bees closer to their dwellings. The first beekeeper’s hive may have been a short hollow log.…