Young Wordsmiths 4th issue 2019

Read stories, poems and articles written

by Lekha’s students and staff !!

December 2019

YOUNG WORDSMITHS Young Wordsmiths is the online magazine of Lekha Writing Center.

It is dedicated to publishing writing BY and FOR children.

FOUNDER: JYOTI YELAGALAWADI

Text Copyright by Lekha students as noted in the Lekha Anthologies published by Lekha Publishers LLC. Material in this magazine is drawn from student writings’ from Lekha Anthologies published over the years as well as from current student writings’ from Lekha Writing Center classes and camps.

Images Used are Copyright Free and Royalty Free.

Fonts Used: Segoe Print, Adobe Devanagari.

FOUNDER’S NOTE Dear friends of Lekha, Lekha is a creative space! A place where writing is considered a form of entertainment and education.

The Lekha team is filled with people who love working with children and enjoy the process of creative story-telling and expressing themselves through writing. They understand that when you teach, you learn, when you tell, you understand and when you create, you be. When they are mentoring the students in the Lekha class, these feelings are transmitted to the young charges in the classroom.

Some of our instructors are award winning poets, counselors and mentors in their field. Many of them are published authors. In this issue, we have highlighted the words and published books of some of our instructors. We hope that you enjoy this glimpse of the talent that our dedicated staff members possess.

In this issue, we have also focused on the work of many of our young wordsmiths. We are proud that we were able to instill, the desire to write and express themselves creatively, which is still reflected in their works.

Some of our young authors are now all grown up and pursuing careers in fields varying from medicine to cinematography.

We keep creating new worlds with words that is reflected in the writing of our current students.

After fourteen years of starting Lekha, we continue our journey to help create the next generation of young wordsmiths.

Hope you enjoy reading this issue!

Love, Jyoti Yelagalawadi.

Founder of Lekha Ink, Corp.

YOUNG WORDSMITHS is a quarterly magazine.

4th issue of 2019 EDITOR: Radhika Rajesh Raikar

If you love to write and love telling stories, then please send your submissions to the following email address: submissions@lekhaink.com

Inside this issue…..

Squeaky and the Cheese Girl

...Page 6-11

The Treasure

...Page 12-19

Word Games

…Page 20-21

The Legend of Talapinda

...Page 22-27

Sonnet of a Poet’s pen

...Page 28

Pencil

…Page 29

Laugh with Dinosaurs

...Page 30-31

The Dragon Carousel

...Page 32-33

Pikoo Peacock

…Page 34-35

The Mystery of the Missing Iguana

...Page 36-37

Young Cheez Whiz

...Page 38-39

For the love of a dog

...Page 40-41

Residues

....Page 42-43

If the Color is Fugitive

….Page 44-45

Dark Reckoning

…..Page 46

Tiny Little Troubles

…..Page 47

Squeaky and Cheese Girl An original play written by Naina Edwards, Yvanny Chang, Mareli Macias, DJ Cramer and Marut Yelagalawadi.

Cast of Characters:

Cheese Girl: Fourteen-year-old girl who loves so much cheese. She is very nice, and her favorite food is Mac and cheese.

Squeaky: A very curious mouse that is really vicious. Squeaky loves cheese.

Alex: Cheese girl’s brother. He is 18 years old. He is nice to his sister. He is smart and good at math.

Bob: Cheese girl’s father. He is 35 years old. He works at Apple, and he is very strict.

DJ: A talking pen made by Apple. He escaped from the Apple offices.

Narrator.

SCENE 1: “Introduction to Squeaky and Cheese Girl” written by Naina Edwards and Mareli Macias. ( Cheese Girl, a fourteen-year-old girl and Squeaky, a mouse stand on the stage.)

NARRATOR: ( points to Cheese Girl) This is Cheese Girl. Her favorite food is cheese.

She goes crazy for it. ( Cheese girl waves to the audience and blows kisses. Then she exits.)

NARRATOR: (points to Squeaky) This is Squeaky the mouse. She also goes crazy for cheese.

NARRATOR: About a month ago, Squeaky’s sister , Squeakalina, died. And this is what happened. One day she smelled cheese and had to have it.

(A mouse smells the cheese from her hole and comes out. The cat sees the mouse and hisses at her. Then the cat charges at the mouse and kills the mouse.)

NARRATOR: Ever since that day, Squeaky has wanted revenge.

SCENE 2: “Squeaky Steals Cheese” written by Naina Edwards and Mareli Macias. ( Cheese Girl is sitting on a couch, drinking milk and getting her Wii ready to play.)

NARRATOR: This is the day Squeaky is going to try to get revenge on Cheese Girl.

(Cheese Girl picks up her plate of cheese and eats a piece of cheese.)

CHEESE GIRL: Oh, that was good. I feel like I’m in heaven. ( Cheese Girl puts her plate back down and starts playing with the Wii.) CHEESE GIRL: (calls out) Kitty, come here. I have some chicken. ( Cheese Girl’s cat, Baloo, comes in and eats the chicken. The cat meows and purrs. Squeaky looks out of her mouse hole and sees the cat.)

SQUEAKY: (stomps) I hate that stupid cat. He is always in the way. ( Squeaky looks at the cheese.)

SQUEAKY: How am I going to get that cheese? I have to distract that cat. ( gasps) I know, I will use a toy mouse to distract that cat who gets on my nerves. ( Squeaky gets the toy mouse and winds it up. Then she lets it out of the hole. The cat sees the toy mouse and chases after it.)

CHEESE GIRL: Hey Baloo! Where are you going?

SQUEAKY: Yes! (celebrates a moment) (Squeaky sneaks out of the hole to try to get the cheese.)

SCENE 3: “ Alex and Bob in Australia” written by Yvanny Chang and Marut Yelagalawadi.

(Bob and Alex are in a coffee shop on a cruise ship) NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Cheese Girl’s dad and brother, Alex are on a trip in Australia for Alex’s birthday.

ALEX: Dad, what are we having for lunch?

BOB: Well, it’s your birthday, so you decide where to go, not me.

ALEX: Chuck E Cheese’s.

BOB: Okay.

ALEX: We should get Cheese Girl some cheese when we’re there.

BOB: Why do you keep calling your sister “Cheese Girl” when her real name is Naina Edwards?!

ALEX: Because she loves cheese!

BOB: Ooooooh!

SCENE 4: “Cheese Girl asks Pen for help” written by DJ Cramer.

(Squeaky steals the cheese from the table and Cheese Girl sees her.)

NARRATOR: Back at home, Cheese Girl sees Squeaky take the cheese and chases her back to her hole.

(Squeaky runs back to her mouse hole. Cheese Girl runs after her.)

CHEESE GIRL: What are you doing?

SQUEAKY: Come to take revenge on my sister!

CHEESE GIRL: Your sister? (sets down pan) What do you mean?

SQUEAKY: Don’t play innocent with me! (growling) Your ugly cat killed her!

CHEESE GIRL: Baloo? But he’s so harmless. He wouldn’t harm a fly! (Baloo enters stage.) See? He’s so cute! (Baloo growls and attacks Squeaky) SQUEAKY: Eeeeeeek!

CHEESE GIRL: (with an angry face) Give me my cheese, and no one gets hurt!

SQUEAKY: Give me my sister!

CHEESE GIRL: How can I do that???

SQUEAKY: I don’t know. It’s complicated.

(Baloo charges and hisses.)

SQUEAKY: (runs into hole) I’ll get youuuuu!

CHEESE GIRL: Oh! What a day! I need to make Mac n’ Cheese. That will lure that mouse out.

SCENE 5: Written by Yvanny Chang, DJ Cramer and Marut Yelagalawadi.

(Cheese Girl makes Mac and Cheese at the stove and leans over to sniff the cheese. That’s when Pen falls out of her pocket and into the pan of Mac and Cheese.)

PEN: Aaaargh!

CHEESE GIRL: What was that?

PEN: (muffled) Down here!

CHEESE GIRL: Hello?

PEN: Help!

(Cheese Girl pulls out Pen from macaroni pan and stares at it.)

CHEESE GIRL: Aaaaaah!

(Cheese Girl throws Pen, and Pen lands on the counter.)

PEN: Ow! Jerk! Oy, thanks though.

CHEESE GIRL: Sorry ! Well, will you please help me??

PEN: What do you need help with?

CHEESE GIRL: A mouse stole my cheese, and I need you to get that mouse out of the hole.

PEN: Certainly. I shall help.

CHEESE GIRL: Thank youuuuu!

PEN: Anytime.

CHEESE GIRL: I love that cheese. It’s from Australia.

PEN: Delightful cheese, eh?

CHEESE GIRL: Uh...I guess.

PEN: What do I do?

CHEESE GIRL: Lure the mouse! Go the hole and get her to come out.

PEN: Your wish is my command!

SCENE 6: “Pen talks to Squeaky” written by DJ Cramer and Ms. Gwen.

(Pen rolls in the hole where Squeaky is hiding.)

SQUEAKY: What the?

PEN: Hey, you should give Cheese Girl her cheese back.

SQUEAKY: I won’t! I hate her.

PEN: Why do you hate Cheese Girl so much?

SQUEAKY: Her cat killed my sister.

PEN: Why don’t you give her the cheese back?

SQUEAKY: Why doesn’t she give me my sister back?

PEN: That’s impossible.

SQUEAKY: Then I won’t give her the cheese back PEN: Have you ever had anything taken from you?

SQUEAKY: Yeah.

PEN: It’s not nice.

SQUEAKY: Yeah you're right.

SCENE 7: “Squeaky becomes friends with Cheese Girl” written by Yvanny Chang and Marut Yelagalawadi.

(Squeaky comes out of her hole with the cheese in her paws)

SQUEAKY: I am sorry, I stole your cheese. Here, you can have it.

CHEESE GIRL: Really?

SQUEAKY: Yes. Are we friends?

CHEESE GIRL: No, you can keep it, and we are friends.

SQUEAKY: Okay.

(Just then, Bob and Alex came home.)

ALEX: Hi! BOB: Hi Naina. We brought you some cheese.

CHEESE GIRL: Thanks! How was Australia?

BOB: How were things here?

CHEESE GIRL: (smiles at Squeaky) Great! ( She takes the cheese and hugs everyone.)

Written under the guidance of instructors– Jesus Castillo, Andrew Tan and Gwen Florelei Luib– from Lekha School of Creative Writing as part of an Enrichment program at Easterbrook Discovery School.

THE TREASURE

Written and illustrated by Sanika Patil

“Crissy, where did you hide my phone again?” Tim called, as he looked frantically around the room.

“I am using its flashlight to search dad’s old workspace in the attic,” Crissy yelled back, not even looking up from what she was doing.

Tim was steaming with anger because Crissy took his phone; he didn’t see the old suitcase right in front of him as he rushed into the attic.

Crash! Boom! “Ouch!”

“Tim! You broke the suitcase!” Crissy scolded her twin brother.

“Thanks, I’m okay,” Tim muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Wait, look! Seriously Tim, there are many things in the suitcase and they look important,” Crissy remarked.

She rushed over ignoring Tim who was moaning in pain. She saw a compass, many old photos, and paper with a bunch of writing on it and showed it to him.

“I really miss dad! These are photos of him in Morocco,” Crissy said sadly. Their dad had gone missing while traversing the continent of Africa six months ago.

“Me too,” Tim added, “Let’s explore just like him.” Tim added.

He turned around to face Crissy and accidentally bumped into her arm, causing a chain reaction that knocked over the old rickety suitcase.

Suddenly, the suitcase started shaking violently.

“Ah!” Tim yelled, “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know” Crissy said trying to calm her shaking hands and legs. Just as suddenly the suitcase stopped shaking and a secret compartment opened. Inside was a crumpled up tan sheet of paper.

“Whatever it was, I have a feeling that we found something better than what we had found the other day in Dad’s workspace!” exclaimed Tim.

The attic was cold and had a vintage style.

The wall was covered in world map wallpaper. The attic had no windows and had a tiny entryway. There was crumpled paper and paper with writing all over the floor. Dust and cobwebs were also in this dirty attic.

Crissy snatched the tan piece of paper from the compartment and unrolled the paper.

“Tim, look, it’s a treasure map!” Crissy cried in excitement.

“Huh?” Tim asked, still recovering from his injuries.

“This is really cool! I cannot understand it though, it doesn’t look like English,” Crissy said confused.

Crissy ran downstairs. When Tim finally got up, he followed.

They spread the paper across the table and tried to figure out what the treasure map meant. Tim took a closer look.

“Crissy, I think it might be a code! In this code a one lettered lowercase word is “B”, and the only one lettered lowercase word in our alphabet is “A”, so the code must be the letter after the actual letter is the code letter.

“Hey! The map reads, the treasure is located on a deserted island!”

Tim figured out.

Crissy rolled up the piece of paper again and as she and Tim walked outside, they saw two men carrying a package towards their neighbor’s house.

“We have to return the package to Peru today. After we drop it off, we’ll head back to headquarters,” one man said.

“Tim, does the treasure map say what the shape of the deserted island is?” Crissy whispered, making sure the men didn’t hear.

“There is a shape of a heel here and some writing next to it,” Tim explained. “It says that the shape of the island is the shape of the high heel.”

“Tim, let us see if the deserted island is close to Peru,” Crissy responded.

Crissy and Tim rushed upstairs.

“Tim why are we running back to the attic?” Crissy asked.

“Crissy, we have world map wallpaper on our wall. Let’s not waste any time!”

Tim glanced back at his sister.

“Look, Tim! The high heel island is almost connected to Peru!”

Crissy started jumping up and down. “I got an idea. Why don’t we follow those men, hide in the package, and we will be shipped to Peru. Then we can make our way to the island. We should take all of our money just in case we end up needing to it. Mom won’t even notice because she’s always busy with work!”

“I guess,” Tim said, questioning Crissy’s idea.

“Let’s go!” Crissy yelled, while she grabbed Tim’s hand and rushed outside. They ran back down the stairs and once again listened to the men outside.

“Come on, let’s go back to the headquarters shipping center to send the package,” the same man said to the other.

“Let’s follow them,” Crissy requested.

At the headquarters . . .

“Take the top of the package, so we can stick on the labels,” a man remarked. The twins noticed that he was clearly the boss with his booming voice.

One worker took the top off, and both the men went into another room.

“Here is our chance,” Tim whispered.

Crissy and Tim hopped inside the box.

“Ew gross, packing peanuts are in my mouth! They taste foamy!” Tim mumbled.

“Shh!” Crissy exclaimed.

Five minutes later . . .

“Put the top on. We are already late!” the boss grumbled. The man closed the box.

“Crissy, we are getting lifted onto a plane!” Tim screamed.

Five hours later . . .

“When will we get out of this plane? My feet are aching,” Crissy moaned.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! The plane lurched to a stop.

“Crissy, we need to get out! Help me lift off the top quietly!” Tim said.

Thud! The lid dropped next to the crate.

“Hurry, the two men probably heard it! Hide!” Tim remarked.

They hid quickly close to the door so they could make a quick escape.

“I told you to close it properly,” the boss scolded.

“Sorry boss,” the worker apologized.

“Let’s go. They aren’t looking,” Crissy whispered.

Crissy and Tim quietly tip-toed out of the shipping airport.

They ran out of the airport and down to the nearest street, and then they called for a taxi.

“Where do you want to go?” asked the taxi driver.

“We don’t know the exact name of the place we want to go, but if you have a map of the place, we can show you!” Crissy explained, as they got into the taxi.

Crissy and Tim pointed to the high heel island.

“I can take you to the port, but I cannot drive my taxi over the water!” he joked, “It will be expensive though.”

“We have the money” Tim responded.

After 3 hours . . .

“We are here. There is about one mile between this port and the island. Since you came on a long taxi ride, you may use my boat for free to get to the island. Also the price is 225 sol!” the driver exclaimed.

“We only have U.S. dollars,” Tim stated.

“Three sols make one U.S. dollar, so that will be seventy-five dollars,” he responded.

“I have fifty dollars,” Tim stated.

“I have twenty-five dollars,” Crissy remarked.

“That is perfect! My boat is in the back.” Bob told Crissy and Tim. Crissy and Tim got out of the cab and took the boat.

“How will we return it?” Tim asked.

“There are a few places to hang out nearby. I will stay there until you come back!” the taxi driver suggested.

Tim and Crissy dropped the boat in the lake with a big SPLASH! They jumped into the boat.

Thump! Thump!

“Get in Tim. Row!” She ordered.

“Row row! Don’t stop!” Crissy scolded.

“I am rowing, but my arms hurt,” Tim whined.

After twenty minutes of intense rowing, sweaty hands, and a lot of complaining, they reached the island. Crissy got off the boat and climbed up to the island.

They noticed fierce looking people looking down at them as they got down. They were warriors.

“Hey, Ho! This is our island! No trespassers!” The warriors chanted directly to the twins.

“Crissy wait,” Tim yelled, “There are some warriors!”

But it was too late.

“Hey! What are you doing?” a warrior cried while grabbing Crissy.

“You too!” a warrior said to Tim while grabbing him.

The warriors carried Crissy and Tim to the prison and pushed them into a cave.

“Ow!” Crissy and Tim cried.

The twins noticed a man curled on his knees in the back of the cave. As he stood up and walked towards Tim, they noticed something familiar about his gait.

“Wait, dad?” they exclaimed in unison.

“Crissy and Tim! What are you doing here?” their dad asked, confused and surprised.

He gave them both a hug.

“We came looking for a treasure located on the island,” Tim said, showing the treasure map to their dad.

A smile started spreading across his face. “You two found that in a secret compartment in a suitcase in my workspace. Wow! You made the same mistake as I, and you were also caught by the warriors!” their dad remarked with a horrified look on his face.

“It’s ok Dad,” Tim said noticing his dad’s quick change in expression.

“Wait, maybe I can use my hairpin to unlock us like in the comics,” Crissy suggested, always searching for the solution to the problem. Crissy stuck her hand through the bar, and put her hairpin into the lock. She turned the pin and the door popped open.

“Shhhhh! Children, let’s escape quickly but quietly.”

Their dad showed them the right escape door and Crisy, Tim, and their dad were able to slip away unnoticed. Tim took out their treasure map.

“It says that the treasure is located on land between two lava pools,” he stated.

“That should be ahead,” their dad guessed. “ There is no other land on this deserted island.”

Crissy, Tim and their dad walked ahead. “Wow, look at the pool!” Crissy said in a daze.

“It is amazing!” their dad said while staring at it with big eyes.

“Come on, let’s get off this island after getting the treasure!” Tim exclaimed.

Crissy and Tim ran with all their might while their dad followed closely behind.

“Dad hurry, we found the chest!” Crissy and Tim yelled in unison.

“Open it!” Their dad said in astonishment.

They opened the chest…

There were gold necklaces, gold coins, gold bracelets, gems, and jewels!

“Let’s take it back because I have a friend waiting in Peru who has a submarine that will take us back to California. The problem is, I don’t know how to get back to Peru,” their father explained.

“We have a boat to take us back to Peru, Dad!” replied the twins.

“We got to use it for free from the taxi driver,” Tim added.

Excited for what would become with their treasure discovery, all three of them rushed to the boat, rowed back to shore, and headed to the friend’s submarine and finally home.

At home . . .

“I have been worried sick about you two!” their mom cried.

“I told you she would realize!” Tim muttered.

“I didn’t know,” Crissy muttered back.

“Harold?” Mom said when their dad walked through the door.

“Crissy and Tim found me!” their dad proudly stated.

Everything was well after that. Crissy and Tim had their father back, and their mom was no longer stressed.

They lived a quiet peaceful like with their glorious and intriguing treasure!

Young Lekha author Sanika Patil, who was a student of Lekha for more than a year loved to write. Mystery writing was her favorite genre.

At Lekha, we believe in nurturing and nourishing the innate creativity of young children.

Lekha’s goal has been to create the next generation of young wordsmiths!

Jyoti Yelagalawadi Lekha’s young published authors !

This spooky story was written as a part of the Creative Writing class conducted at Walnut Creek Community Center in 2013.

Text and Illustrations Copyright Š 2013 Marie Yeon.

Once upon a time there was a girl who believed in many myths and legends.

She thought they were real.

So she got scared of it all day.

One day she found a book in her garage.

It said, “Legends of Talapinda.�

She opened the book but it was in another language.

She accidently dropped the book and then saw that it was in her own language.

The first page was about a legendary dragon.

Of course she believed that it lived in a deep deep forest, as the book said.

So she went there.

First she saw a sharp thing on the edge of a cave and went closer and closer to it.

There was a legendary dragon!

She let out a loud scream!!.

Everybody in the village heard her loud scream.

They couldn’t find the little girl

Lekha’s Instructors are writers, poets and story tellers.

Sonnet of the Poet’s Pen

By Gwen-Florelie Luib

First-place Phelan Award winner 2009

My pen is but a stick between my stiff

and aching fingers: useless wand, I fear, whose magic cannot conjure much. So, if I wave it back and forth, no poems appear.

It is a broken oar; a boy scout’s branch that rubs against the air and makes no spark; a single Chinese chopstick used to pinch a grain of rice; a wet match in the dark.

Within my grasp, it’s not the brush Van Gogh would use to paint a moon-and-star-filled night; and not the staff that strikes God’s ten-plague blow on Egypt, forcing Israel’s midnight flight.

I hold a blind man’s walking stick and tap my way across this vast, and wordless, map.

Pencil

By Jyoti Yelagalawadi You fly from hands that love to play ball.

You make wondrous landscapes for those who wish to escape.

You conduct ecstatic music in the minds of those who create.

You beckon those who wish to seek on wild adventures.

Yes, you’re chewed on often as thoughts are hard to come by.

You’re sharpened again and again as feelings just don’t stop.

Young readers will be enthralled by twenty-six uncommon dinosaurs, whose names each start with a different letter of the alphabet. Readers will smile at the charming artwork that depicts these unusual creatures of ancient times.

This is truly a book that grows with a child.

A preschooler will learn to recognize the alphabet, and can use the phonetic guide to pronounce difficult-sounding dinosaur names.

Older children will learn about the different flora and fauna that grew during the different geological periods. The stark difference between the present day world and the world inhabited by the dinosaurs is clearly portrayed in simple English. A two-page spread discusses the different types of dinosaurs and a pictorial appendix explains how dinosaurs are named.

Jyoti Yelagalawadi has enjoyed the art of telling stories for her entire life. She passes on this love of storytelling to her students at Lekha School of Creative Writing, of which she is the founder.

An avid animal lover, many of her written works reflect her love of animals and her interest in the relationship between man and nature.

Some of her published works include the educational picture books, Laugh with Dinosaurs and Deep Sea Creatures, as well as the children’s stories Red’s Adventures, Chirpy the Chipmunk, and The Vegetarian Cat. Jyoti’s work has also been published in various magazines. Jyoti currently resides in Tracy, California with her family.

Dinosaurs are one of my favorite creatures. I thought the best way to express my love for dinosaurs would be to write a book about them.

I enjoyed doing the extensive research for the book and was able to gather a wealth of information about many dinosaurs that are not commonly known.

After gleaning through all the information, I was able to crystalize it into an alphabet picture book about dinosaurs which I thought would be educational and appealing for an audience both young and old.

Hope readers continue to enjoy this book for years to come.

Jyoti Yelagalawadi

Downtown

By Novella Genelza We used to watch the fireworks as a family, spreading out blankets and beach chairs in the intersection of San Carlos and Woz Way. The fireworks would explode overheard and if you stood in the right place, the tiny scraps of burning paper would fall on you like dying stars.

I used to catch them when I was little.

I kept them in boxes in my closet, Having admired their furious, singular flight.

Novella Genelza is a writer, artist, graphic designer and poet. She has a bachelor’s degree in creative writing with a concentration in poetry from University of California, Santa Cruz.

An avid reader and writer since her early childhood, Novella has always loved creating books. She began writing stories at the age of five, and wrote and illustrated the children’s picture book, The Dragon Carousel, when she was eleven years old.

Her love for working with children brought her to work at Lekha Publishers LLC., and Lekha School of Creative Writing, where she taught the art of creative writing to children. She has illustrated many Lekha picture books, including Chirpy the Chipmunk, Red’s Adventures, The Vegetarian Cat, and Leo and Lola. Novella prefers to create her artwork digitally, but uses a variety of mediums based on the wishes of the authors that she works with, including colored pencils, watercolors, markers and mixed media.

Written and illustrated by an eleven-year-old Novella, this book takes young readers along for a ride in the life of Lily Chen, a young Chinese American girl growing up in San Francisco, California. When Lily’s life turns upside down, will she be able to find the strength to overcome her obstacles?

It’ll be easy for most children to relate to Lily’s dilemma. Her background, the description of the Dragon Carousel, the problems encountered in the new school and the denouement are all beautifully detailed, resulting in a magical, powerful message for young readers. A true treasure from a very young author.

—Kirkus Review

PIKOO PEACOCK Pikoo peacock is a beautifully illustrated fable which highlights the loving relationship between a mother and child.

It shows how a mother can educate a child while trying to calm them about their insecurities. This poem will help you appreciate the similarities and differences between birds. Pikoo peacock learns that every single bird is special and unique, though they all belong to one grand family tree.

Pikoo peacock is written by Radhika Rajesh Raikar who is the editor of Young Wordsmiths. She has been a part of the Lekha team for the last 4 years and is Lekha’s Operations Manager.

Jyoti Yelagalawadi

PIKOO LOVES TO COLOR..

DO YOU???

Above is a page from the companion coloring book for Pikoo peacock which was illustrated by Pankaj Sadanand Pawaskar.

Alex and his pet chimpanzee Angelo are the young detectives of their neighborhood. When a friend’s pet iguana goes missing, Alex and Angelo immediately take on the case, and the sneaky reptilian leads them on an exciting chase. How will Alex and Angelo use their sleuthing skills to solve this mystery?

Books that make you ponder !!!!!

Ruchira Khanna, a biochemist turned writer, left her homeland of India to study in America, where she obtained her master’s degree in Biochemistry from SJSU and a degree in Technical Writing from UC Berkeley. After finishing her studies, Ruchira worked as a biochemist at a Silicon Valley startup for five years. After the birth of her son, Ruchira took a job as a technical writer, so that she could work from home.

Soon, she began doing freelance writing work as well.

Her love of writing grew and she started working on her own books. After four years of freelancing, Ruchira published her first book, a fiction novel for adults called Choices.

Then came the children’s book The Adventures of Alex and Angelo: The Mystery of the Missing Iguana. She got a thumb’s up review from Kirkus Reviews.

In January 2016, she has published her second fictional novel Voyagers into the Unknown. It talks about the quest for happiness as the heavy-hearted tourists travel miles from different parts of the world to Raj Touristry in Agra, India. Return to their respective home with a healed heart. This book talks about their journey!

In Breathing Two Worlds, Ruchira talks about ethnicity and cultures and helps to strike a balance via a fiction-drama novel as her characters breathe two worlds.

RSVP: A Novel- This book explores the lines between reality and illusion and the significance of family as Jay the protagonist finds peace within by embracing his past.

The Doppelganger is a metaphysical short story that will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions as the astral and physical bodies clash.

She recently published another endearing short story– Through his eyes.

In addition to writing books, she also maintains a blog on Blogspot, called Abracabadra. It has been featured in the top 50 mindfulness blogs.

Ruchira currently resides in California with her family and works as an instructor for Lekha Writing Center.

Young Cheese Whiz Waxes Artistic with Throw-Away Wrappers

By Luanne Sanders Bradley

Published in Ecosalon - June 5, 2009.

They say it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but maybe not when it comes to mini-mounds of Babybel Cheese.

You pull on a center strip seal to open the package.

You eat the yummy cheese inside, perhaps with a cracker and some grapes.

You throw the red wax wrapper away? No way, Jose !

Not if you are 10-year Hazel Olson Dorf, a budding San Francisco eco-artist who molds the wax into characters to create her highly-original miniature sculptures.

“I was playing with it one day and made a ball with a face in it and thought it was very cool,” shares the 4th grader about the process. “The next time I got some cheese wax, I made another guy.”

Featured in an exhibition in the lobby of Brandies Hillel Day School in San Francisco, Hazel’s cheese wax characters are born of great imagination and embellished with found discarded objects the student finds at the homes of her friends.

Among the props that bring the balls to life are tiny shopping carts, gold paper coins, candy wrappers, broken pencils and safety pins. She spares these items from the trash, reclaiming them as treasures for the humorous and whimsical beings.

They’re mostly weird dudes, not exactly human,” says Hazel, who has named a couple of them Alfonse and Spike.

“Hazel’s art is part of an innovative art movement in which artists choose to recycle and reclaim materials rather than use traditional art supplies,” observes Angela Willetts, a painter and art instructor at Brandeis Hillel. “Not only does her work look good but it also helps to save the planet.”

Willetts fosters an appreciation of green design at the school, overseeing projects all year that incorporate everyday household items from old socks for creating Ugly Dolls to used plastic wrap for peopling life-size sculptures in motion.

While the wax would seem a hard medium to transmogrify, Hazel has the process down.

“I actually hold it in my hands to warm it up for a while until it softens,” she explains, “and then I begin molding the balls.”

The only challenge for her is keeping up her supply of Babybel wrappers.

“I eat the cheese, sometimes, but usually I rely on my friends to bring it in their lunches,” she says.

Like most artists, Hazel connects with other visionaries who see the world in a similar way. Her best friend, Lauren Kate Bradley, explores works on paper towels and cocktail napkins that have been gently used at her house.

Excerpt from “For the love of a dog”,

from A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers

By Dennis Jamison

My golden retriever let out a mournful howl, which I could hear as if he were beside me. Jumping up, I walked quickly to the back window….A bizarre scene stunned me. Champ hung upside down with his right hind leg caught in one of the top rungs of our wire-mesh fence.

Panicked, I pushed away from the countertop, blasted through the backdoor, and raced across the yard….

Struggling to grasp how a harmless, waist-high fence between our yard and our neighbor’s had become a steel trap, I wondered whether I could help or whether I would make things worse.

My heart raced as I fought panic. Could his leg be broken? Would it break if I tried to move it? Champ’s painful predicament overwhelmed me, but I could not stand idle and watch as my friend suffered.

“What happened boy?” I reached out to touch him and let him know help had arrived. I quickly drew back when he growled.

Ignoring the warning, I tried again, holding out my right hand to show I was not a threat. Champ whimpered, I moved my hand closer, inching toward his shoulder.

“It’s okay, boy. We’ll fix this.” Confidently, I reached closer. In an instant Champ’s sharp teeth lashed out and chomped down on my fingers…

Pain shot up my arm and tears welled up in my eyes, but I refused to wimp out. Looking away from my injury into Champ’s glazed eyes, I realized he had to be in tremendous pain to bite me.

The pressure of the moment almost paralyzed me, but I knew I had to act. I could not wait for hours until Dad came home to fix things. I decided I could put my pain on hold, hoping my buddy knew I was there to rescue him.

Though I knew I needed to act, I still hesitated.

It ran against of good sense to deliberately allow a dog to bite me, But this was my dog. This was my best friend.

Getting an idea, I ripped off my flannel shirt and wrapped it around my injured hand.

“Okay, big guy, we’ll see if you can bite through this,” I said as I stepped forward and reached for Champ. He snarled and bit me again, sinking his teeth into the flannel. Pain shot through my tender hand…

Moving as quickly as I could, I reached my arms under Champ and felt his teeth chomping into the soft fleshy part of my exposed arm. I turned my head away from his snout to protect my face. Getting a secure hold of his body, I pressed him against my chest to bear his weight. I first lifted him a bit to lessen the pressure on his leg and the rotated him around and up to maneuver his bleeding leg through the steel trap. Champ immediately broke free from my arms and landed upright, on all fours, on the ground. I was amazed that his leg seemed all right.

I knelt down and put my arms around Champ, who busily licked my face. As we rolled around in the grass, the tension and the pain vanished. I knew my best friend would be OK. As he slobbered all over my face, I remembered the first time I’d picked up the little butterscotch-colored fur ball amidst the other pups at the kennel…

Dad had cautioned me at the time that being responsible for a living creature would require personal sacrifices. I’d never imagined it would require shedding blood.

RESIDUES

By Shideh Etaat

Kajik the fortune teller owns a Persian restaurant where the only thing on the menu is kabob.

You have to make sure he’s working, that it’s not to busy, that he has time to see you.

I ordered two skewers, on lavash bread soggy with grease, a yogurt drink with a hint of mint.

There’s a round belly under his apron, like a story hiding.

And underneath the aged circles of his eyes, the sweetness of a six year old sucking on a candy as if the entire Earth rested inside his warm mouth.

He doesn’t say a word to me, but brings coffee after my meal.

The dark, Turkish kind where futures leave footprints.

I drink fast as two wrinkled men play backgammon, takes half bites out of sugar cubes, sip on their tea.

“You’ve almost died twice,” Kajik says, finally sitting, examining the designs inside the cup.

It’s an excavation of broken bones.

One of the old men snaps to a song in his head, does a slow shimmy as he wins, knock knocks on the wood.

“Be careful with the drinks,” he continues, stops then and says, “show me your scars.”

I show him the one on my wrist, from when I was twelve and tried to scare my older brother by banging hard on his window, the end of the thin, stitched line, where my vein begins.

“Stay in control or you will find bigger scars,” he adds, then sighs like his heart is expanding with my wrongdoings, the thought of death.

He twirls the cup in his fingers, smiling as he finds more fossils of my future, “You like to hurry love,” he says, “slowly, slowly.

Love is patience and you’re not there yet.

But yes, you will write something and everyone will read it, don’t ever stop doing that.”

He takes my hand inside his own, “You will be fine,” he says, “just fine.”

And even though it’s just left over coffee in a cup, my mouth tastes bitter,

and the flies have begun to circle the kitchen in the back, I believe him.

When I ask him why he doesn’t do this often he tells me, “It’s hurts too much, seeing everything.

And one time I looked into a cup and it was empty.”

Julian nĂŠe Sara Mithra hovers between genre and gender, border mongering and mongreling. At local festivals, they exhibit handmade chapbooks and cut-up zines, like Mixt Frame (2017), WOOD: A Handbook (2015), and The Better to Teeth You With (2013). Read their words on paper in Versal 12, Milvia Street, Storm Cellar, ANXY, The Other Side of Violet, and on a screen at pnkprl, Gendertrash CafĂŠ, and PoetryFilmKanal. They received the Prospero Prize from Fathom Books in 2017.

For a Masters in Folklore Studies at UC Berkeley, Sara dressed up as a 19th-century anthropologist and spoke through a copper pipe. Find unsettling recitations on Soundcloud and watch soft-focus, collage-poem videos on Vimeo.

2019 LAMMY AWARD FINALIST FOR TRANS POETRY At the close of the frontier, during a queer elsewhen, If the Color Is Fugitive asks for witness to vagrants searching for landmarks amidst rubble.

Peppered with invented idioms and slant colloquialisms, these poems preserve an archive of survival that reads like a folklorist translating from local dialect to earnest exhortation: how to escape with nothing but your name.

PRAISE FOR IF THE COLOR IS FUGITIVE: “In If the Color Is Fugitive, Sara Mithra reaches a hand into the past and pulls it around you like sudden weather.

They manifest an American mythos of 19th-century prairie life that is also terribly real, a plainsong of mortality and survival in an immediate, human sense.

This small book is brimming with narratives by characters who are literally scratching a living from the earth, and packed with lucid, worldly details that pull us out of our clock-run world. It’s a chorus of diverse and disarming voices, each of which strips away preconception and reveals, reveals, reveals.”

– Richard Loranger, author of Sudden Windows

“‘What’s the harm in slaughter? America needs / corset stays, parasol handles, sugar, china, fertilizer, buttons, pistol grips.’

When you consider what’s happening in the United States right now, and read a story in a poet’s hand like that of Mithra’s, then it is no wonder that ever since colonization, America has unceasingly proven its own damnation. In If the Color Is Fugitive, Mithra brings us within hearing distance of the voices of its survival.”

– Megan M. Garr, author of Terrane, and editor of Versal “The poems in If the Color Is Fugitive are a time capsule that contain opposite elements. Intelligent yet folksy, sonically complex, playful and haunted, these snatches of Americana both tease and warn. Take this book in your hand, take the invitation into Mithra’s jerking, measured, heart-rent dance.”

– C. Bain, author of Debridement

Sara Mithra is one of Lekha’s current instructors. She has been a part of the Lekha team for 3 years and teaches at Fremont.

A poet in her own right, she believes in encouraging a child to empower themselves through the creative writing process.

Jyoti Yelagalawadi

KIRKUS REVIEW In White’s debut novel set in the Wild West, an ex–buffalo soldier named Jericho Raintree faces monstrous forces on his quest to find a home for himself and his adopted daughter.

Ben Dalton, on his way to join his brother and fellow U.S. marshal, comes across a grotesque massacre featuring a “sickening mix of guts and organs” oozing from at least one severed torso. From a dying man, he hears about a “devil woman.” Earlier and elsewhere, readers meet a mysterious woman named Nahema as she siphons power from several powerful Native American shamans—except for one, Tave, who’s able to call for help from the aforementioned Raintree, who hears the call while on his way to California with his adopted daughter, Tosha.

But before he can face Nahema and save the shaman, he finds himself making an enemy of a powerful, greedy man in a small town. This man recruits several other people to stop Raintree, including Ben Dalton’s own brother. Meanwhile, an evil power continues to rise in the land. If this all seems like a lot to put into one novel, that’s because it is.

However, White does a very good job of keeping the story moving, easily switching from one story thread to another; readers are told about the human forces arrayed against Raintree, then about Tosha’s struggle with a cannibalistic wendigo spirit, and so on. It makes for an exciting, fast-paced read, as there’s always something new to threaten and bedevil the good guys.

Because of the sheer number of characters, though, readers don’t always get a clear idea of them as rounded individuals, as this book seems more interested in simply delivering an exciting plot. Sometimes, though, supernatural genre clichés creep in, as when an evil child calls out to another to come out and play.

Entertaining supernatural action-adventure with some horror elements.

Marc Lecard is the author of the novels Vinnie's Head (St. Martin's Minotaur, 2007) and Tiny Little Troubles (St. Martin's Minotaur, 2008). His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines, as well as the anthologies Killer Year: Stories to Die For, edited by Lee Child, and Best New Horror 19, edited by Stephen Jones.

Keith White and Marc Lecard are both published authors who were part of the Lekha team. Their forte was writing books about crime fiction and horror genre.

These veteran Lekha instructors would engage with the kids in the Creative Writing class in a very active way.

They would invent fun and creative punctuation and vocabulary games which would help the kids learn language skills.

They both had a passion for writing and because of their story telling abilities, their classes were always very educational and entertaining for the kids. They always engaged with the entire class as a group and were able to elicit some wonderful creative write-ups from their respective classes. Parent’s also valued the individualized feedback and encouragement that was given to the kids in their class.

Both Keith and Marc left a significant imprint on many of Lekha’s young wordsmiths!!!!

Jyoti Yelagalawadi

BUILDING CREATIVE YOUNG MINDS Young Wordsmiths is the online magazine of the Lekha Writing Center.

Lekha Writing Center is committed to developing a generation of children who think beyond the book! We do this by teaching them to write creatively, using a blend of time-tested and newly-developed methods that stir one’s IMAGINATION.

write4joy This app will help children and adults to learn the art of writing creatively.

Writing stories, poems, plays, and essays will become a joy.

Use the write4joy app and become the writer you wish to be.