Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2024 i Cricket Magazine Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories for Children and Young Teens

Daniel Krall grew up on a small farm in Fontana, Pennsylvania. He spent a good part of his childhood acting out one-kid plays in the woods and dueling with trees and squirrels. His love for imagining things led him straight to the drawing desk. He attended college at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he studied illustration. He currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where he does drawings for magazines, newspapers, books, and any other publications that will let him create fun, weird characters and tell exciting stories! Is it time to renew? shop.cricketmedia.com 1-800-821-0115…

Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Fillet of a fenny snake,In the cauldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Cool it with a baboon’s blood,Then the charm is firm and good.…

In the shelter, caged, she cried,“Let me out.” I touched the pawpoked through the bars to reach my hand,set her free and brought her home. Midnight cat, black on black,yellow eyes wide, undersizedbeauty, frail, with blunted tail.Played through my days, never strayed. Sure of foot, she made the roofher own; called through curtains drawn,“Let me in,” and I obeyed.Brave she was, and unafraid. She dared, when I was scared or sad,to stay close by me in the dark.Soft fur, beneath the duvet, purred,curled against my heart she lay.…

IT HAD ALL gone wrong right from the start. Kishna had so looked forward to meeting his cousin from the city, exactly his age, whom he had not seen since they were practically babies. There’d be so much to share, or so he thought. How excited he had been to get the news a month ago. That day, he had run all the way home from school and burst into his father’s tea shop to find him telling a customer, “Imagine, my brother Gobind is coming here. . . . Ten years it’s been. Bringing his son, Suresh, too.” Kishna had halted, startled. The Uncle Gobind, coming for a visit? Uncle Gobind who had done so well in the city of Delhi, who started off driving a taxi and now…

Across 1. _______ house4. Smaller than a forest6. Fairy _______7. Fear of spiders: arachno_______11. To perform or accomplish13. A large stone14. Untidy17.Opposite of nay19. _______ hang in haunted houses23. Old witch25. “Quoth the Raven, ‘_______ more.’”27.Light and breezy29. Doctor (abbreviation)31. A wound does this32. The Hunch_______ of Notre Dame33. Feline wails and howls34. Ghosts and _______ Down 1. Opposite of soft2. Gets closer and closer3. Allhallows _______5. Drenched8. Trick _______ treat9. Water-going vessel10. An _______ chill ran down my spine12. Prophetic sign15. Ghost16. An Aesop story18. Night hooter20. Grave_______21. Run-down or dilapidated22. Fairy tale monster24. To be ill26. Used in speech: _______ cords28. Old-timey way to say “you”30. Large rodents32. What a ghost says Solution to Crossbird Puzzle…

SIMON LAY IN the wheat field, hidden from the eyes of anyone who might happen to pass by. He was plucking stalks of wheat and linking the straws together to make a circular network of spokes and struts, trying to distract himself from worrying about the war. If this stem were attached here, and then he wrapped this long stem around one of the stones from his bag and knotted it. . . . He held the framework in one hand and released the stone, smiling as the falling weight made the straw pinwheel spin. The sound of hoofbeats made his eyes widen. He scrambled to his feet in time to see a figure on horseback galloping down the road toward his family’s farmhouse. The rider sagged to one side,…

IF IT WERE up to Dad and me, we would have all kinds of pets. We love animals. But every time I ask for a cat or a dog, Mom says, “Katie Plante, you know it wouldn’t be fair to have a pet with nobody home all day.” Somehow, even though Dad and I outvote her, she always wins, and we don’t have any pets. Because of this, Dad and I keep our eyes open for interesting animals and tell each other about them. Dad brings home the most stories because he sees all kinds of dogs and cats and even an occasional goose, horse, or goat when he’s on the job. He works on the ferry that goes from Portland, Maine, to the islands of Casco Bay. Most of…

MY NAME IS FAUNA, but Mom and Dad sometimes call me Magpie since I talk a lot. They call me “animal magnet,” too, because animals like me. I don’t mind at all because I like them, too. In fact, what I really, really want is a pet of my own. My dad has a pet fish, and I like it a lot—but I would still like a pet that’s all mine. “Please?” I asked my parents. “Pretty please, with cherries and chocolate and whipped cream on top?” “We’ll see.” “I’ll walk it and feed it and brush it . . . well, unless it has scales or something. Then I’ll polish them real nice.” “We’ll see.” Finally, though, “we’ll see” was upgraded to “soon.” “Let’s do some research,” said Dad,…

A LONG TIME ago in Edo, Japan, the god Kashima sat in his shrine, as still and heavy as a statue. His shrine stood atop a large hill, and through the doorway he could see the patchwork of farms, rice paddies, and wooden huts spread out below. A peasant woman walked into the shrine and bowed her head in prayer. “Great Kashima,” she said, “thank you for watching over us and protecting us from earthquakes.” Kashima nodded and said, “You’re welcome.” He would have liked to speak with her more, maybe sit down with her for a cup of tea, for he dearly loved his people. But he could not. If he moved his heavy feet even a few inches, he risked losing control of Namazu, the catfish who dwelled…

It’s not so easy being meI am a threatened bat, you seeNot many think I’m very cuteWith stringy wings and fuzzy suit I should be loved for how I tryTo eat the pests that multiplyI nightly dine on bugs that biteBy echo-dining while in flight The farmers think we bats are greatWe help the plants we pollinateBut though we’re popular on farmsMost other folk don’t see our charms Those darling pandas get the pressWe bats are jealous, I confessBut we work hard from dusk till dawnThe world will miss us when we’re gone Bats, the only mammal that can truly fly, are important to many ecosystems. Fruit-eating bats pollinate more than five hundred different species of fruit, including mangoes and bananas. Insect-eating bats, using echolocation, eat thousands of bugs every…