Chatterbox: In This Month's Issue

I'm a bit late, but finally heres my review of the Cricket issue in February! It was a fun issue to read this time! Also, I know half the people reading this don't get the mag anymore and just want to see whether they got in, so I'm going to do that now before anything else. But I have also put out plot summaries of each story so that maybe you can understand them too.

So, congrats to September, Jarvis, Adira D., Fleet (otherwise known as Agent Winter), Cayke, Abigail, Cho Chang, Chatterbox Admin (I mean, an admin's post did get into the mag, so whoever commented last year that the next Valentine reunion would be in 2023, or something around those lines, congrats!), whoever suggested the beginner thread to Kyngdom (it was posted with a ? name), Sybill, Floof Industries (also known as Ella Starburst), and... Ella... Starburst? Wow, looks like someone got TWO entries in the mag. And finally, Rogue Wildering, also known as Porcelain Dragon. I'm still not in the mag yet... But maybe someday. Also, if you want to see what got posted, you can request it and an admin or I can show you. Also, something interesting I found in the letterbox was that an 18 year old got her letter in the mag that said she was in the Civil Air Patrol. And she's in my state too, Georgia! Just found that interesting. Now on to the rest!

I love the cover art so much! Its one thing to see the cover on the home page of this website and another to have it in your hands. Its just calming and pleasant to looks at. The little dots of snow everywhere gives the setting a fuzzy feeling. Then the white snow around the skater makes her radiate, and her clothes that stand out in the setting pull your eyes right to her. The entire thing seems so soft and nice to look at. Leonid Gore did a good job creating the cover.

Also, spoilers throughout the entire rest of the review. You can come back later to this when you read the mag and stuff. If you already have, continue on! 

Cricket Country has a good comic this time. Its about Cricket and his friends playing a game of ice hockey, and Ladybug wants to win, breaking rules and causing everyone to crash, all because she wants to rech her goal. She doesn't win, and she rages about it. Its just a game of hockey, yet its pandemonium. As you read through the panels, the game gets more and more confusing, and its fun to read. Ladybug is center stage, because of course she is, and she is so determined to win hockey that its hilarious. Good read this time. 

The Human Zamboni is... very interesting. It's about this girl Harper who keeps failing on her ice skate exams. She can't be good enough like her friends are, and she's beaten by five-year-olds! She gives up ice skating for a while and wants to do something else, but she's drawn to ice skating. Eventually she goes back to the ice rink, and her friends greet her happily. I don't know that much about ice skating, so for some of it I didn't really understand, but I still enjoyed it.  I liked how after failing many times, Harper feels like giving up, something I have felt like doing in the past, like when I was learning my ukelele at first. But then she learned that even if she wasn't good, she still liked ice skating, and returned to it. Sometimes, perfection blinds our enjoyment. And trust me, trying to do something simply for the sake of being perfect at it won't get you very far. So, I liked the message. I enjoyed the story very much. And the art was pretty good. I especially liked the detail of the ice. 

One Day, Some Day is a very good poem. It's about an ice skater that is clumsy at skating. She sees a more professional ice skater going out on the ice and skating gracefully, and the clumsy ice skater thinks that someday she will be like that professional skater. The lines have so much action in them, and its fun to say aloud. But even though the clumsy skater is sort of like Harper in the Human Zamboni, the clumsy skater doesn't give up and believes she will eventually be good. The art is good too, and the clothes stand out very well. 

She Dreamed of Dresses is a fun read. Its a biography about an African-American girl named Ann Lowe in the early 1900s who dreams of designing dresses. However, since African-Americans don't have much rights in this time period, no one will give her a chance. But one day, a finely dressed lady named Mrs. Lee sees what Ann is wearing and asks about it. When Ann says that it is her own creation, Mrs. Lee asks her to move to Tampa. Ann then goes to a fashion school and works in dress shops, and people loved her creations. Then, she got to design a dress for the bride of John F. Kennedy! It's amazing how such a low-class girl climbed up the ranks to meet her dreams. I don't even like fashion that much, yet it's my favorite story in the issue! Some of the pictures are photographs, and some of them are illustrations, making the story look fun to read. I really liked this one.

February Secets is interesting. Not much to explain in this one, basically its saying February held secret signs of Spring. Don't have much to say about it honestly. It's interesting, but a bit over-done in the poem industry to be honest. It's also short, so I'm sort of dry here. Sorry. I like the picture of pussywillows though!

False Impressions, another part story, yay! So, its about this boy who I believe is named Gilgamesh (its first person, so hard to tell) whose father died, and he had to work for a new embellisher, which is really bossy and mean. Also, apparently, Gilgamesh has some kind of religion, which I don't know the name of, which has a god named Sin, lord of the moon. He started to whisper to Sin to not forget his servant when a girl named Kirum noticed him and told him she would give a stone of fine amber to know his thoughts. She handed the amber stone over, and Gilgamesh explained he was thanking Sin that he would no longer be here, since he had been hired to a seal cutter. Then, he said he would give a handful of dates to know Kirum's thoughts. Kirum then laid out Gilgamesh's situation perfectly, and she says she is the daughter of Zarriqum, the seal cutter, and she had come to fetch him. The next day, Gilgamesh meets Zarriqum, who turns out to be a gruff, old man. After he leaves, a familiar man comes through the door. Mar-eshtar, the man Gilgamesh hadn't seen for six years! I like this story. The illustrations are good, the story is interesting and laid out, and I don't know where its going. I really like it. 

Favorite First Sentences are back! The ones who got included are Out of My Mind, Unwritten, Harry Potter and the Sorcerors's Stone, Chains, Of Giants and Ice, Stuart Little, The Lost Hero, and Argos: the Story of Odysseus as Told by His Loyal Dog. Nothing to say here, these are always great.

Three Impossible Tasks, part 2! I'm not going to summarize this, since I didn't last time. Sorry, I don't want it to be too long. But I did like the story. I almost expected it to be split into three parts, since there are three tasks. However, I did admit, the conclusions to these are a bit... expected. I knew Pei was probably going to use some kind of breathing straw to stay underwate, and after the ink spilled in the third task, I immediately knew how it was going to play out. Finger painting DOES exist, you know! But him using his blood for the plum blossoms was unexpected. I did like the story, and liked the art.

From Slave to Congressman was another biography about an African-American, this time about Robert Smalls. Its about a slave in the civil war whos on the side for the Confederates, though he wants to be for the Union so he could have a chance to be free. He works for a captain, and he realizes the captain's short, stocky build is like Robert Smalls, and in bad light, Robert could be mistaken for him. So, he sneaks on the captains ship and hopes that he can get away with it. He does, and he sails for a Union base. He surrenders once he gets near, tells his story, and the Union wlecomes him heartily. Smalls and the stolen ship then start facing many battles, and his popularity grew. He learned how to read and write, and his children learned too. Smalls had reached his dream of freedom. Wow. Just wow. You can just read the story and tell why its great. Second favorite story in the issue, and it also combined illustrations and pictures. 

I haven't done Ugly Bird's puzzle, so I don't have any opinions on it... Sorry. But it looks pretty fun.

Timespiral. This one's a bit confusing. So it's about a boy named Jeff who wakes up in a middle of a fire. He remembers his fire drill training and gets out safely. However, he realizes his dog Yank is still in the house and goes back inside, only to get hit by a blaze of fire. Then he wakes up again, in a smoke-free house. He goes to school thinking its just a dream, but confused how it felt so real. In class, his science professor talks about time and talks about a fun theory that maybe someone could possibly skip from the present to future. Then, after school, Jeff goes home and goes to bed, still disturbed about the fire. When he wakes up, he realizes the same fire is happening. He again makes it out safely and again forgets Yank, but doesn't go back inside for fear of what happened last time. Then he sees his friend Tim with Yank. He had gotten out with Tim! If Jeff had went inside the house again, he could have been dead without cause, causing the timeskip to save his life. Any story with time is fine by me. And the timeskip theory is an interesting storyline, and original too! Third favorite story in the issue. 

Cricket League! This time it was the October 2019 art contest and the people who were included was Stella Gorman, Cora G., Anthony Baltz, Paxton Suhr, Nina Tomasca Koch, Zayda Pettica, Noor Syed, Hannah Jones, Aliya Raofield, and Anna Uszok. Loved all the pictures this time around!

Old Cricket Says was interesting. George Washington apparently had a whole lot of birthdays! Wish I was that lucky. 

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I apologize, admins, with the longness of this. But hopefully it was worth it. See you next month!