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

cricket us

CRICKET STAFF Lonnie Plecha Editor Anna Lender Art Director Patrick Murray Designer Carolyn Digby Conahan Staff Artist Deborah Vetter Senior Contributing Editor Julie Peterson Copyeditor Emily Cambias Assistant Editor Adrienne Matzen Permissions Specialist CRICKET ADVISORY BOARD Marianne Carus Founder and Editor-in-Chief from 1972–2012 Kieran Egan Professor of Education, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Betsy Hearne Professor, University of Illinois, Champaign; Critic, Author Sybille Jagusch Children’s Literature Specialist Linda Sue Park Author Katherine Paterson Author Barbara Scharioth Former Director of the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany Anita Silvey Author, Critic Sandra Stotsky Professor of Education Reform, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Roger Sutton Editor-in-Chief of The Horn Book Magazine, Critic Ann Thwaite Author, Critic…

cover and border

“New Seamester” black India ink and watercolor paint Based in the United Kingdom, I have had the pleasure of working as an illustrator for two decades. (Gosh, that makes me sound ANCIENT!) My traditional pen-and-ink style has proven popular in the world of children’s books, greeting cards, packaging, and advertising. I work regularly with publishers such as Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster, and Bloomsbury, and in recent years have reinterpreted the illustrations of classic children’s books written by Enid Blyton, Sir Terry Pratchett, and Anne Fine. Is it time to renew? shop.cricketmedia.com 1-800-821-0115…

the letterbox

Dear Cricket, I have been getting your magazine for a little over a year. My mom asked me if I wanted to stop getting it, and of course I said no. How could I not? It’s one of the best magazines ever! I love literature, so when I first heard about Cricket, I freaked. High-five to all reading and writing “nerds” out there! Lacie D. (January 2019), I love Harry Potter and Echo, too! I would recommend The Eighth Day series and the Percy Jackson series, if you haven’t read them. Lizzy (April 2019), I’m a huge Harry Potter nerd. I wish it were real! I’m a Ravenclaw, according to a test, but personally think I’m nowhere near smart enough. Experiment: I put this letter in the mailbox on April 21, 2019. Let’s…

cliffhanger

“GRANDDAD?” I KEYED the hand-held radio, facing away from a blustery wind. “Weather’s turning. I’m heading down. The bear rub’s all I’ve got.” I released the talk button. I’d hoped to relay some creative story idea—or maybe, for old-time’s sake, a cool wildlife sighting Granddad might sketch. But a measly black bear rub on a ponderosa pine wasn’t likely to inspire either. I sighed. Normally, Granddad’s need to observe wildlife permeated our every moment together. But normal ended last fall. We’d become a team during annual summer hikes in these Idaho mountains, Granddad’s artistic eye turning an observed wild animal into a whimsical sketch. Around alpine campfires we’d spin possible storyline and illustration ideas based upon that sketch. Before week’s end, a new, very rough but humorous picture book would emerge.…

for the love of books

Houshang Moradi Kermani is one of Iran’s most famous writers. This story is from The Tales of Majid, a collection of stories about a boy named Majid who is raised by his grandmother, Bibi, in the rural Iran of sixty years ago. MASH ASSADOLLAH WAS the grocer at our corner store. Standing behind his glass display case, he tore out a page from a book. He twisted the page into a cone-shaped envelope and then filled it with tobacco. He placed it on a brass tray on the left side of his scale, and then to weigh the tobacco, he put small, numbered iron weights one by one on the right side of the scale until the two trays were in balance. He folded the envelope of tobacco closed and handed…

a kind word about crosswords

ARTHUR WYNNE SAT in his office at the New York World newspaper, deep in thought. It was Saturday, December 20, 1913. Christmas was just days away, and he wanted something special for the magazine section of Sunday’s paper. He had made use of word games before, but he wanted this to be different. Wynne tapped his pencil absentmindedly as he thought about the word puzzles popular in his day. Acrostics, in which the first letter of each line of a verse spelled a word or phrase when read downward, and word squares, in which a square grid of letters formed the same words horizontally and vertically, were puzzles from ancient times. How could he make word games new for the twentieth-century reader? In the late hours of that day, with the deadline…