Spider Magazine Stories, Games, Activites and Puzzles for Children and Kids January 2016

“LOOK WHAT I found!” Dandelion Pinkley shouted as she rushed into the great room holding a thick book. “A really old photo album. It’s labeled ‘Winters’!” The great room was the biggest room in the Pinkleys’ humungous house. It also had the biggest fireplace, where, right then, her brother Doodlebug, their parents, and their cousin Rudyard were making s’mores over the flames. Their friend Boggington Bogsworth the Third, known as Bog, was also there. S’mores-making was a Pinkley tradition on cold winter days. “Let’s see that,” Doodlebug said as Dandelion sat down next to him before the fire. He put down the stick he’d just stuck a marshmallow on, and Dandelion opened the book. “Look!” Dandelion squealed. “Mom and Dad a hundred years ago!” “Mercy in a frying pan!” Mrs.…

My best friend moved down South. We said that we would write. I mailed her every week, But now we’re in a fight. She says she’s never gotten A letter or a note, That all I ever send her Are empty envelopes. But since the day she moved, For this whole winter long, I’ve sent her thirteen presents! I don’t know what’s gone wrong. The first time that she wrote me, She said she missed the snow. So once a week I pack some Into an envelope. It’s lots of work to stuff it in, It gives me “writer’s cramp.” But I’ll make sure she gets this one By using twice the stamps.…

A MYSTERIOUS MACHINE arrived at The Franklin Institute Science Museum in 1928 with no instructions. The heap of broken brass was a treasure waiting to be discovered. It looked like a young boy, but no one had a clue what it did. Curators at the museum patiently pieced old parts together and set motors in motion. And then it happened—the machine came to life. The two-foot-high brass boy opened his eyes, bent his head, clutched a pen in his hand and began to draw! With amazing lifelike movements, he drew intricate pictures. He even wrote poetry. This was no ordinary machine. But what extraordinary person had built it? The first clue came from the memory of the machine itself. After writing a poem, the machine penned these words in French:…

IN ALASKA LONG ago, when animals still talked to humans, Old Wolf met a small girl at a river. The girl’s name was Nurauq, and she carried a bag made from a seal’s stomach. Old Wolf greeted her. “Waqaa? What brings you here?” “I’m taking some food to my grandmother,” said Nurauq. At the word food, Old Wolf pricked up his tattered ears. He no longer moved fast enough to catch juicy mice and tender young geese on the tundra. For many months, he had eaten only scraps thrown away by the villagers—moldy fish skins and rotten caribou bones. But now, he thought, I will trick this little girl into giving me some real food. He blinked his golden eyes at Nurauq and said, “My, that’s a lovely new parka…

At night before bed I look up at the stars, imagine I’m rocketing full speed to Mars. I land in red dust and I sift through the sand, examine strange rocks in the palm of my hand. I catalogue craters, volcanoes, and plains. I sketch dried-up valleys with dark, grainy veins. I photograph deserts and Mars’s two moons, then parachute perfectly back to my room.…

RAIG WATCHED HIS older sister, Riley, and her friend Liz race up and down the lake on their skates, dodging the other hockey players. Their skate blades looked like silver smoke. When the game was over, the girls skated up to the bench where Craig was sitting. Craig asked Riley what skating felt like. “When I go really fast, I feel like I’m flying,” she said. That’s silly, thought Craig. Flying is something birds do in the air, not something people do on ice skates. Then he watched Riley go back out on the ice. She skated around and around the edge of the lake with her arms pumping and her scarf trailing behind her. Soon she was going so fast that her arms looked like wings and her scarf…