Dottie Young

Kathryn Hirtz

From the late nights
staying up with friends
binge-watching movies
and stealing food.

The late mornings
of undisturbed sleep,
and waking to the warm sunshine
when no one else is around.

Now my nights are spent
stressed with homework
after late practices.
Now my mornings are spent
waking early to finish any assignments
left sprawled on my desk.

I took lots of precious moments for granted,
I’ll try not to grow up so fast next time.

Poetry

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Kathryn Hirtz laments lost moments of a joyful youth, and their contrast with new responsibilities.

Careless Moments

Lyla Cheary

It all started with Hurricane Irma. That, and a bunch of poorly-made treats by seven year-olds. 

My best friend Eleanor, my sister Jillian, and I love baking and we wanted to sell our pastries. We knew that we wouldn’t make a lot of money just selling the treats, so Eleanor came up with the idea that whatever money we made, we should donate to the victims of Hurricane Irma that had recently wiped out Puerto Rico. The bake sale was a success! In the end, we raised 101 dollars. We donated the money to the American Red Cross, specifically for the victims of Hurricane Irma. We were ecstatic. That was the first layer of the cake, the inspiration toward creating our non-profit organization: Baking For a Cause.

After giving to the causes for Puerto Rico, we wanted to help again. We wanted to do more. We all started learning about climate change; it devastated us. The thought that we were killing ourselves and Earth was awful. I was thinking about our first bake sale, and I thought that we should donate all the money we made to charities that help climate change. I knew that people loved sweets, and just buying the pastries from our bake sale would not only make them happy, it would also make them feel good that they were able to help. Enter: Baking for a Cause. 

Not only did we want to donate our bake sale money towards climate change organizations, we could also be eco-friendly while baking. We keep in mind what materials we can avoid using, like paper (so we don’t chop down trees) and plastic that can release harmful chemicals into our air. We also look to see if we have ingredients before buying to avoid food waste. We’ve been doing this for a little under a year and some of the charities we’ve donated to so far are GreenPeace, the Australian Red Cross (for the wildfires in Australia), and the American Red Cross. Each of these organizations have something they can do to help our planet. 

It was very cool to figure out how to bake while being eco-friendly and we couldn't wait to start selling the treats. But I didn’t think people would actually buy our pastries. I used to think people were lazy and they didn't want to do anything to help the Earth. Now that I’ve done some bake sales, I do believe that people want to help. I notice they help more when it’s just as simple as donating to a charity or buying something for themselves like a pastry. It was inspiring to see that people actually did care. For example, we were doing a bake sale outside of a supermarket right by a bus stop. When a bus came, and everyone walked out, the bus driver noticed what we were doing. He beckoned us over and donated a dollar for our cause without even buying a treat. More recently, when we had a bake sale, a delivery man walked by and I asked him if he wanted to donate to help stop climate change. We didn’t expect him to because he was working but he still gave us one dollar anyway. We were so happy. It was one more dollar to go towards saving our Earth. After all, it takes care of us, we should do the same in return. These are my favorite moments because these people don’t have to donate, but they still care enough to give the planet a moment of their time. These moments are special, but the actual baking is even better.

I do not view my volunteer work for Baking for a Cause, or any work for climate change as a chore. I really love baking. When we bake, we get to spend time together, connect, and catch up. Some may think volunteering is just sitting around waiting for something to happen (like I did). I remember seeing Salvation Army workers just sitting there looking bored. However, you can always mold something you like into volunteer work. When I think of baking or cooking, or just anything I like to do, you can incorporate that into some way of raising money, or volunteer work. Since I find baking very fun, everything I do that includes it is fun too. I’m sure it’s like that with most activities. A lot of people enjoy video games. You could raise money by competing against someone on the Nintendo Switch, and charge one or two dollars a game. You could create a TikTok account for your cause and make videos with random people, or with yourself, or with strangers. The videos don’t even have to be about your cause, you can just give all the money you make off of your account to your charity.

We are always learning new recipes and ways to improve the recipes we have. Some ways we improve our baking is by learning all the little tricks that go into it. For instance, you should always soften the butter before mixing. It is so hard to mix if it is not softened!  I also learned to taste the frosting before you put vanilla extract in it because it may not need it. My last tip, and learned this the hard way, is to work very slowly with confectioners sugar, it's very messy.

Even though baking is a very messy process, the presentation can’t end up being messy. We make more money when the pastries are colorful and presentable. This makes baking a creative process because of the many different aspects to it. For example there are so many colors to choose from. And shapes! You could  shape your cake into a star, a square, even SpongeBob. Anything really. To make it taste good, you need to put the right amount of sugar, flour, milk, vanilla extract, and baking powder; all of that matters. 

Baking For a Cause has changed my life. It helped me be more aware of my surroundings and bond more with my friends. It has brought me more joy because I get to do what I love while helping the Earth. It is possible to contribute to your charity while doing what you love.   

In a KidSpirit Helping Hands article, teen writer Lyla Cheary shares how she turned a favorite hobby into a way to fundraise for charitable causes.

Baking for a Cause

Zayna Mian

My research led me to a surprising finding that in most cases, during the course of our lives, we start to ‘unlearn’ the intrinsic creativity we were born with. Consequently, our creativity decreases as we become older.	


Creativity. Day by day, the clamor of this buzzword seems to be getting louder around me. 

My mother keeps reminding me about the importance of creativity and innovation for success in the future job market. My piano teacher encourages me to channel my inner creative spirit by composing my own tunes, while science teachers keep giving examples of creative models made by other students in competitions. Even my mentor during a recent internship at a non-government organization (NGO) encouraged me to think of creative solutions for dealing with challenges such as poverty alleviation in Pakistan. This made me rethink my understanding of the origin as well as trajectory of creativity in an individual’s lifespan. My research led me to a surprising finding that in most cases, during the course of our lives, we start to ‘unlearn’ the intrinsic creativity we were born with. Consequently, our creativity decreases as we become older.	

Traditionally, people referred to creativity in terms of artistic talent: for example, painting or playing an instrument. I still remember my grade four art teacher in Riyadh telling me to pursue painting, as she thought I had a creative streak. It’s only recently that I started to realize and understand that creativity goes beyond just artistic talent, which is one of its subsets. The creative impulse should be viewed in terms of a skillset that enables individuals to use their imagination to produce original, effective, and functional output. As a society we are more likely to link tangible output (a device or piece of art) with creativity, however, intangible output (ideas, theories, and solutions) can be equally, or more creative. In a nutshell, creativity can encompass any skill set, applicable in all areas of life, at all levels and ages. 

While exploring this topic, I learned that there are four main types of creativity. Deliberate and cognitive creativity involves harnessing the preconceived knowledge you already have of a subject and channeling it to form a course of action. This type of creativity is usually applicable to researchers and inventors. Deliberate and emotional creativity occurs at random moments when a useful idea or solution emerges, stimulated by the coordination of different parts of the brain: the amygdala, which controls human emotion, and the cortex, which is responsible for processing what you learn or discover. Spontaneous and cognitive creativity, involving the conscious mind, is that ‘Eureka’ moment when you suddenly stumble across a solution to a problem at the least likely moment. Spontaneous and emotional creativity is related to epiphanies, when you are finally able to approach a dilemma from an alternative perspective and hit the nail smack on the head. 

Child prodigies such as Mozart, Pascal and Chopin give credence to the view that we are born with our quota of creativity. However, despite the creative impulse being partially intrinsic, a plethora of factors impact whether a person’s creative impulse is developed and nurtured. These factors include the family set-up, environmental exposure, and most importantly, educational facilities. It also depends on the personality of an individual and their willingness to seize opportunities. Thomas Edison’s famous quote, “opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work,” brings to light the persistence of his efforts in working on various designs before his creativity was encapsulated in the form of a functional light bulb. Therefore, I tend to agree with the view that creativity is driven by a mix of genetics and environmental factors, and that the extent of its expression can change over time depending on how we nurture it. 

From personal experience, as a child I used to churn out artwork and was considered a highly creative five year old by my teachers. To date, my mother cherishes an old photograph that shows me holding my air cleaner ‘invention’ that I made out of cardboard to tackle the dust storms in Riyadh that curtailed my outdoor playtime in the park with friends. This creative spree continued for several years; I would collect everyday items and also badger my parents to take me to a bookstore selling arts and crafts supplies so that I could build models of playgrounds, slippers, etc. I also loved hosting mini shows for my family where I would make a skit using my toys. Towards the end of middle school, however, my creative impulse was placed on the backburner by a set of new priorities ,where friends and academics featured more prominently. As I had less time to focus on nurturing my creative skills, my disinterest in pursuing creative initiatives became apparent to family members. I am lucky that I have people around me who value the importance of creativity and actively encourage me to pursue projects that utilize creative skills. 

My experience is not unique, as I have come across other people, especially adults, who lament the decline in their creativity. In 1968, a study was conducted by George Land on 1,600 children’s performance, at different ages, in a creativity test that was originally designed for NASA to recruit innovative scientists. The test involved examining a problem and devising new and innovative ideas. The surprising test results showed that 98% of the four to five year olds had creativity scores at the genius level, 30% of ten year olds and only 12% of 15 year olds. In adults above 31 years, only 2% managed to achieve creativity at genius level, leading Land to conclude that “non-creative behavior is learned” as we grow older. He attributes this to our education systems which teach children to use both convergent thinking (conscious thought in which ideas are being judged, criticized, and improved) and divergent thinking (subconscious thought in which unrefined original ideas take shape) at the same time. Land believes this approach is counterproductive as it brings about a fight between opposing neurons and instead recommends allowing people to divide their thinking processes in a manner which gives sufficient time for each state to be effective. In practical terms, this would entail letting the mind run wild when coming up with ideas, and only evaluating and shortlisting the best ones at a later stage.

Researchers point out that creativity is not a random gift that only belongs to the lucky minority. We all are intrinsically gifted with creativity when we are born; perhaps some more than others, as in the case of prodigies. This is where the environmental factors come into play. Creativity must be nourished for it to flow naturally. I like to think of it as a plant which needs to be watered and provided with sunlight. Therefore, I strongly recommend project-based learning in schools at all levels to promote and cultivate creativity by making the learning process in schools enjoyable. This approach combines text book learning with hands-on application to real life problems: for example, identifying and developing ecosystems in school and community parks for local species while studying wildlife conservation. 

My first exposure to running a business venture came in grade five when I had to set up a “company” with four team members to sell clay baked magnets. We designed and manufactured our “product,” developed a marketing plan and sales pitch, which was delivered in a mock market setting to parents and other students to convince them to buy our product. This was the first time I handled cash independently and remember celebrating the “profit” earned with team members. My learning was multifaceted, including the challenges and benefits of teamwork, art of persuasion, and value of money. I think we need to give young people time away from structured environments for unleashing imagination and pursuing topics that interest them, whether it is pretending to fly or making towers from playdough. As Einstein stated, “imagination is more important than knowledge” for nurturing creativity. Spending more time outdoors, reading, playing chess, or taking up a musical instrument can all help young people stay on the creative track. These activities encourage taking inspiration from everyday items without getting caught into the right and wrong way of for example building a model.

Since creativity is emerging as a prized attribute in this decade, employers, schools, colleges, and especially parents must all work towards nourishing and further strengthening the inborn creative skills of our youth. Techniques for fostering creativity include sharing ideas with others (feedback allows one to improvise and brainstorm), taking inspiration from other creative people, allowing oneself to daydream, practicing meditation, and exploring new interests. For instance, my school has replicated a TED Talk environment by introducing Lahore Grammar School Talks for every grade level, in which students speak on a current topic of interest and create an interactive environment with on-the-spot questions that require thinking on your feet. Incorporating meditation as a part of the daily routine also nourishes creativity as it helps the mind relax, which restores and improves perceptiveness and cognitive abilities. As we age, pursuing new interests outside of our comfort zone, such as learning an additional language, playing a new instrument, painting, or cooking can all help improve creativity by encouraging the brain to practice divergent thinking. Furthermore, consistently challenging yourself at all stages in life through consciously harnessing new opportunities can help stimulate critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which also boost creativity. 

Simple ways to challenge yourself can include setting tighter time constraints to everyday tasks, exploring possible solutions for major world issues, and even trying an “escape room” adventure (a game in which participants solve riddles and puzzles to escape). Now that I have become more aware of the unlearning of creativity with increasing age, I plan to restart art and craft projects that had been relegated to the attic and attempt composing tunes on the piano, in addition to venturing into the world of coding with the hope that these endeavors enhance my creative streak. I also encourage other young people to take out time to let their imagination soar without fear of judgement, and then explore the avenues that come to light.

Bhasin, Hitesh. “4 Types of Creativity." MARKETING91. https://www.marketing91.com/4-types-of-creativity/.

Land, George. “The Failure of Success." Tedxtucson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfKMq-rYtnc&feature=emb_title. 

“5 Techniques to Improve Your Creativity”. OPERATION MEDITATION. http://operationmeditation.com/discover/5-techniques-to-improve-your-creativity/.

Field, Hayden. “5 Science-Backed Ways to Boost Your Creativity." Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/311870. Accessed 25 April 2020.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Zayna Mian explores research that suggests our creativity declines as we age, and discusses ways we can fight to keep our minds open, innovative, and sharp.

Rejuvenating Creativity

Rajvi Shroff

Poignant, heartbreaking, yet full of strength and hope, Ruta Sepetys's Between Shades of Gray is a masterful historical fiction novel. 

It has been published in over 50 countries, is an international bestseller, won numerous accolades, and has a film adaptation as well, under the title Ashes In The Snow. And for good reason: it is one of the best books you will ever read.

There are some novels that you pick up and can’t put down; it’s a race against time to get to the ending, but at the same time one hopes that the story doesn’t end. This is one of them. 

Between Shades of Grey is told from Lina’s perspective, a 15-year-old middle-class Lithuanian girl born to erudite parents in the 1940’s. The book deals with the experience of her family and countless others from the Baltic States like them during World War II. They suffered horrific losses, and were brutally silenced for their differing political views and their anti-Communist beliefs (among other reasons). Lina finds solace through her art. She bravely records her life and the lives around her, despite the risks, with the hope that one day, everyone will know their story and that it won’t be lost to time. The novel beautifully illustrates the courage and faith Lina finds through her drawings, and shows the transformative power that the creative medium holds for her and fellow victims. Not only does it have the ability to provide hope, but it also has the ability to tell the truth. Her art plays a crucial role in the story of the innocent, and is also a symbol of the life that expressing yourself can breathe into what was once a lifeless situation. Interwoven with flashbacks and well-written subplots to add depth to the story, this book manages to capture Stalin’s regime and document the tragedies in a moving and eye-opening manner; this book deserves to be read. 

The story captivated me from the start with its depth of character and the way it prompted readers to reflect on human dignity and life as a whole. For me, the emotional element of a novel is one of the most important aspects, and Between Shades of Grey certainly delivers, because it has so much to teach. There is a bond readers form with the book which makes it a powerful read. I felt attached to Lina, Jonas, and the others. Their sorrows became mine, and reading their story made me shed tears, but also gave me hope to see them trying to keep going against all odds. 

I thought that the characters were also quite detailed, and especially Lina and Andrius (victim of Stalin’s rule, along with Lina and her family). I could picture everyone in the book, and their personalities also came through. The character development was also important; I felt that Lina matured throughout the course of the novel in subtle ways, and this added to the complexity of the book. For instance, Lina learns to take care of her brother and the elderly, and becomes a more mentally strong person; she also learns to keep her head high despite everything that is happening to her. I think the relationship between Lina and her art also expands on her growth, as it shows that what she once used as a lifeline to forget became her way of preserving her story: a silent rebellion against Stalin and the cruelty she faced. Another remarkable quality about the book is how well it manages to document this episode in history and capture it in a manner that hits home. The novel deals with a topic that is underrepresented in books for young adults, and its empowering message is worth reading. Between Shades of Grey is a story about the human spirit and the human condition, but above all, it is a story for every soul— it is a story about courage and hope in all plights. Such moments of hope, woven throughout the story, makes the heart-wrenching moments digestible and gives an insight into the lives of the victims. The novel also ensures that the voices of victims, who were silenced many years ago, are heard; the book should be read to remember and acknowledge the lives of the innocent.   

From a writing perspective, the book moves well, as the events in the story are timed correctly. Action and character moments balance each other out, so that it mimics real life well. Also, once Lina resolves something, something else happens that captures all of her attention. This makes the novel more realistic and relatable, and the author controls the passage of time in a way that adds to how the story builds and progresses. On the other hand, the flashbacks that Sepetys uses throughout the book aren’t as effective and often interrupt the flow of the story. I didn’t think they added as much meaning as they could have, and often felt tacked on as an afterthought.

However, all in all, it is an excellent novel, is written well, and deserves 5 out of 5 stars. I would recommend this book to ages 13 and over, as it deals with delicate topics, and it does require maturity to be able to process the horrors. In terms of the audience, I think this book is for all readers, as I feel that everyone would find this a thought-provoking read. The themes that the book deals with are universal and the emotional and mental challenges Lina goes through as she grows up is something that will resonate with readers from all walks of life.  I highly recommend Between Shades of Grey— the book gives readers a lot to think about, and its unforgettable story makes it a clear winner. 

In a KidSpirit media review, teen writer Rajvi Shroff breaks down and recommends Ruta Sepetys's novel, Between Shades of Gray, a work of historical fiction that follows a young girl's experience under post-World War II Soviet rule in Eastern Europe. Rajvi explores the interwoven stories of hope and hardship, and analyzes the book's many strengths.

On Ruta Sepetys’s Novel: What Between Shades of Gray Teaches Readers 

Stella Prince

Blue sky. Pink balloons. 
Cotton candy spinning towards the hands of children.
Mother gave her the bicycle on the girl’s seventh birthday.
It was pink, of course, with shiny metal spokes.
They took a picture of the bicycle at the birthday party.
It stayed on the mother’s desk for the rest of her life.
Three years later, the bicycle had gotten too small for the girl.
The mother put the old thing in the basement 
and bought the girl a new one.
It was blue this time, of course. 
She couldn’t be seen with something pink.
Five years after that, the girl turned fifteen. 
She was in high school now.
She hadn’t touched a bicycle in years now. It was too uncool.
The mother dragged the second bicycle into the basement 
next to the old pink one.

Three years after that, the girl is packing for college. The mother has given her old bicycles away to a family friend. She often looks at the photo on her desk as a reminder of what life once was. 

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Stella Prince captures the passage of time and a mother's love for her daughter, all illustrated through the symbol of a childhood bicycle.

The Bicycle

Sofia Mesh

Why was I avoiding living my life to the fullest? That's why on the first Friday of junior year, my friends and I decided to begin going out and doing something, anything, after school at the end of each school week.

My Friday nights used to consist of going straight home after school, taking a two-hour nap, and then waking up and going on my phone until two in the morning. This seemed like my only option. I thought that by doing this, I was relieving my stress from the week by lying around and doing nothing, but I failed to realize how sick I felt after waking up. Not only did I feel sluggish and gross, but I also felt really lonely. That was topped with the guilt that I was living my life passively, going to school and back home without doing much else. It was a repetitive routine that was wearing me out. Where were the memories I was supposed to be making? Why was I avoiding living my life to the fullest?

That's why on the first Friday of junior year, my friends and I decided to begin going out and doing something, anything, after school at the end of each school week. We took advantage of the one day that we didn't have to immediately do homework so that we could all spend more time together and enjoy each other's company without the stress of school in the background of all of our conversations.

On the first Friday of the school year, I had my first AP Spanish class, which runs an hour longer than every other class, so my friends decided to wait in the lobby for me to get out. The previous night I only slept three and a half hours because I was catching up on all the summer homework I had yet to do. So, with tired eyes, I entered the elevator, and my back was already beginning to ache with the binders and textbooks I was carrying. Frankly, I was regretting the fact that I made plans when I could have gone home to sleep. I love my friends, but I couldn't help but think about my new weighted blanket waiting for me back home. I also didn't want to hang out with my friends if I was going to be tired the whole time because I didn't want them to take that as not wanting to be there, especially when they had been so sweet and waited an entire hour for me to get out of class. I pushed the beautiful thought of sleep to the back of my mind and walked out of the elevator and into the lobby. Micayla, Maddy, and Max were all sitting on the chairs in the lobby laughing at some joke the security guard made. When my tired eyes met their cheerful ones and their smiles, I knew there was no way I was going to bail on those beautiful human beings, the ones I had the utmost pleasure of calling my friends. 

With a new burst of energy, we walked over to the Duane Reade right near our school and stocked up on all the necessary snacks and drinks needed for wherever the night would take us. This consisted of Red Bull, chips, and cookies. After that, we walked around for a bit and decided to go thrift shopping to give Max a makeover. With many wrong turns (no one in our friend group has very strong navigational skills), we finally got to the thrift store. We all tried on many clothes. Most did not fit, but the ones that did were gems. Not to mention, we transformed Max into an e-boy, which made for a very fun, unplanned photoshoot with his new look. We left the store with a few new clothes, a funky smell, and itchiness that didn't seem to go away until much later that night. 

We later ended up at Maddy’s house, and after playing with her new kittens for a long time, we opened our snacks and started a Disney Plus marathon. We were half watching the Disney channel original movies (the crème de la crème of cinematography) while at the same time talking over it, to tell stories about our childhoods that resurfaced with the nostalgic movie experience. I uncovered stories about my friends that I had never heard before. Slowly I was getting to see new sides of them and learning more about them than I already did. 

After watching Hannah Montana: The Movie and half of The Cheetah Girls 2, we all somehow ended up not on the couch, but on the floor telling each other stories. We talked about our awe at being juniors, our stress about becoming older, the fear of forgetting each other, and the hope that that could never happen.

Alas, after two hours of talking, the exhaustion from the week began hitting not only me, but my friends as well. The time came where our serious conversation slowly turned into hysterically laughing at anything that anyone of us said. We knew it was about time to go home. 

After getting home, I couldn't help but notice how overjoyed I was. I hadn't felt so fulfilled with my own life in a very long time. The lack of my previous Friday tradition of taking a whole two-hour nap and scrolling through a never-ending social media page for a depressingly long amount of time was not missed at all. I was happy to trade it in for our new tradition of "Friday activity."

With the duties of one's everyday life, it is easy to get distracted from the greater significance of it. For me, since having experienced many Friday activities, I have realized that life is nothing if we don't take time for ourselves to enjoy it. At the end of the day, when I can't physically do the things I can do now, my memories are the only things I will carry with me. I couldn't continue walking through life as a zombie, because I was becoming all too comfortable with permanently being in that state, taking my health and youth for granted. I can never see myself doing that again. I hope that for many years in the future, I will continue to be able to do "Friday activity," and that I can find a passion that matches the joy I get from this tradition.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Sofia Mesh vividly describes an after-school tradition in which she and her friends find endless fun in small trips and adventures. Sofia recounts how they connect with each other in unstructured moments that have become so hard to find.

Friday Activity

Megan Kelleher

My first memory of my Catholic faith was not an out-of-body experience, an ethereal dream of God, or a sacred conversation with the Lord. My first memory of faith was Easter Sunday 2006 and involved big hats and ugly dresses. 

I was four, clad in a white puffy dress with yellow sunflowers and a big green ribbon tied around my waist. My little sister was wearing a matching outfit, and we both had peculiar British-wedding style hats atop our heads. The hats fell below our eyes, making it hard to see as we crossed the street and entered the church. I was tightly holding my mother’s hand and my sister was tugging at the back of the dress, creating a train-like situation. Ahead of us, my two older sisters gracefully glided in the massive doors, dipping their fingers in the holy water, making the sign of the cross, and bowing their heads. Watching them under the brim of my floppy hat, I stumbled in tripping over my hand-me-down white flats, dunked my entire hand in the holy water, and splashed myself in the face like I was the star of a Neutrogena commercial. 

I had been to mass before. I had seen my sisters do this same motion thousands of times, but I had never done it myself… until that Sunday in April. My parents said to go ahead because it was a “special day to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection,” whatever that meant, so I went for it. I never remembered seeing my sisters as wet as I got, but I still flashed a proud smile at family as my parents laughed, my older sisters pretended we weren’t related, and my younger sister frowned because she couldn’t even reach the bowl of water. There I stood, dripping wet on Easter Sunday, grinning from ear to ear because I finally felt like I was part of the family. I was no longer one of “The Babies,” a nickname my older sisters gave my little sister and me seeing as we were the younger pair of siblings. 

I usually dreaded going to church because the masses felt like they lasted for eight hours (they were two), I was always hungry (I had to wait until the end for my donut), and I could never keep track of all the characters in the priest’s stories (there was the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God and sometimes Luke and Matthew?). But, on big holidays like Easter Sunday, my church divided the morning masses so that the young children could go into another room, talk about Jesus, draw pictures, and play while the big kids and parents sat in the main hall. Spending time in the “kids’ room” was my favorite part of church because I didn’t have to be quiet, I could ask as many questions as I wanted, and I did not have to listen to the long, confusing stories. In this room, while I was drawing flowers on the backs of parish newsletters, I got to hear stories about heroes like Noah who saved a whole zoo of animals and Jonah who got swallowed by a whale. I laughed and I played, but I also learned that I should love everyone in the same way that I loved my favorite neighbor Gloria. I learned that forgiving your friends is very important, honesty is the best policy, and never take what does not belong to you.

Looking back on this Easter experience and the other various kids’ room experiences from my childhood, I found so much joy in being part of my religious community. I loved learning about biblical stories and hearing about Jesus, whom I was confident was actually a superhero, walking on water, and giving blind men sight. I loved coloring pictures of Mr. David and the monster he defeated. I loved laughing with my peers about a silly snake in a beautiful garden and teaching my little sister how to stand on her tiptoes to reach the holy water. 

While I certainly enjoyed the donuts, the drawing, and the fun stories, I am thankful for the quality family time that church provided me. I am thankful for the laughs and memories and the embarrassing childhood stories that I have because I went to church. Religion, as a belief system, has inevitably taught me to find fun in the small moments and be creative with my interpretations of texts, but the experience of being religious has been much more formative in my life than the specific psalms and prayers. I have learned to value the people of both my local community and global community regardless of their various beliefs or ways of life. I have learned that love is so much stronger than hate, and no different way of life, religion, gender, sexuality, or race deserves to be treated as less than another. 

My church’s motto is “All Are Welcome.” I used to think this meant “all Catholics are welcome;” however, I discovered that my church is a sanctuary for so many different communities. By opening my heart and making the church’s motto my life motto, I could contribute and enjoy small parts, small moments of so many different communities.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, Megan Kelleher recounts how fun-filled experiences at her church’s “kids room” taught her to keep an open mind and empathize with others. 


Catholicism and Child's Play

Abdullah Sayed

Creative minds are purported to be writers, artists, or musicians, whereas their logical counterparts are scientists and mathematicians. This way of thinking is flawed because it undercuts the value that creativity offers us in the modern age, and has offered us since the inception of society. 

“My sister, she was always logically oriented,” my 7th grade music teacher, Ms. Nikkolas, once mused to my class. “So of course, she went into mathematics. Me...well, I’ve always been a bit more free minded. And here I am,” Ms. Nikkolas continued. The perception that fields of study rely solely on either logical thinking or creative thinking is a common cliché.

Creative minds are purported to be writers, artists, or musicians, whereas their logical counterparts are scientists and mathematicians. This way of thinking is flawed because it undercuts the value that creativity offers us in the modern age, and has offered us since the inception of society. In fact, creativity remains essential in unexpected ways today.

“Creativity” and “logic” are both vague terms. There are hundreds of perfectly acceptable ways to interpret these amorphous concepts. However, for the purposes of this discussion, we will try to frame them in generally accepted terms. Creativity is the ability to create novel ideas from existing inspirations. In other words, it is the ability to take what already exists and combine it with other existing sources of inspiration in an unprecedented way. Logic is the ability to arrive at conclusions, or deductions, based on known information.

Ever since the Age of Rationalism was borne out of the works of Enlightenment-era thinkers, we, as a global society, have sought to understand our world through logic. From economics to the origin of humanity, we have used reason to divine the nature of the universe. Of course, we have much to show for this way of thinking. The technological advancements of the last few centuries are evidence of this. However, this story leaves out the critical role that creativity has played in our progress and the role that it will continue to play in the future.

Sonar and radar were first developed during the World Wars as a way to detect enemy submarines and airplanes in the water and air respectively. Today, advancements are being made in this technology through an unlikely source: research conducted on bats’ and dolphins’ use of echolocation. Both sonar and radar rely on similar physics as those employed by these animals. This is an excellent example of creative application in a traditionally “logical” field. Scientists observed the techniques employed by animals and combined it with a seemingly unrelated concept. Examples of these kinds of approaches are abundant today. Slime molds have been used to improve Tokyo’s transportation system while sharks are studied to give American Olympic athletes an edge in water sports.

Critically, creativity is fundamental to all fields, regardless of whether it appears in the form of an artist’s masterpiece or an extraordinary scientific accomplishment. However, creativity can take different forms. Previously, creativity was defined as the ability to produce novel ideas. When creative ideas are applied to the real world and cause a significant change in conventional ways of thinking or doing things, they can be described as innovative. Our society runs on these innovations. 

In today’s age, creativity is in short supply. This has to do with the nature of creativity and the nature of our economy. Before we explore that topic however, an important implication of our definition of creativity has to be defined. This is the fact that theoretically, everyone has equal opportunity to be creative. This has been known for millennia. As is stated in the Bible, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Every single innovation that has been made by humanity was based on something that already existed previously. In other words, the inspirations through which creative thoughts or innovations can emerge are hypothetically available to everyone.	 Anyone can look at the night sky and write a poem describing it. However, only few people can produce such a poem that might be recognized for their originality. As many of us who have been given a vague writing prompt or had to create an original piece of art in school know, even though all the pieces may lie in front of us, it is difficult to arrange our thoughts and what we understand with our senses into new configurations. Thus, though everyone might have equal opportunity to be creative, not everyone has equal capability to be creative. 

Most of us have spent almost all our lives in some form of schooling with the hope that our education will give us the means to secure a well-paying job as adults. Though all of our circumstances are different, it is true that, in order to achieve the greatest material success, we will have to be more innovative than previous generations. The US economy is a market economy. The market rewards those who are able to conduct business with the greatest productivity. Productivity is always increased through innovations. For instance, whether a pharmaceutical company invents a new drug for a previously incurable illness or a baker finds a way to bake bread more cheaply than his competitors, their innovation is rewarded by the free market. This means that, regardless of the field you enter, you must also always be the most creative to be the most successful. Furthermore, the United States economy has become increasingly service-oriented in the last half century. This is a trend present in markets overseas as well. Gone are the well-paid manufacturing jobs that supported the US economy throughout the 19th century up until the mid 20th century. The consequence of this is that low-skilled jobs that require little to no creativity have disappeared. Where they still exist, they do not pay nearly as well as they did in decades past. Therefore, the American market is becoming increasingly reliant on more creative occupations.

Of course, no one operates like a computer without an iota of creativity, just as no one lives on simply creative impulses. However, creative thinking is in many ways the unsung hero that has led humanity to where it is now. In the 21st century, the changing economy has given us new reasons to seek out a creative mindset. Whether you aspire to be a doctor or a writer, recognize that your success may be contingent upon your ability to bring innovation to your field.

In a KidSpirit Big Question article, teen writer Abdullah Sayed argues that we should expand our notions of what it means to be creative, and explores how creativity is essential to all innovation, regardless of field.

Thinking Your Way to the Top

There is only one thing a flame of fire cannot touch.
Imagination.
You may imagine that the fire is drowning you, 
Just like a gust of wind may drown out noise
But the fire has not so much as swept your imagination for it is boundless
Inside, outside and within.

Imagination is dancing unchoreographed dances,
Making you wild with fear of this fire. 
But
There is only one way out.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Lyla Cheary explores the ephemeral notion of imagination and how you can use it to free yourself.

Just Imagine

Melani Leon

It's a hot day at the beach
The sand burns your feet
There are colorful towels on the sand
No better place to be
Waves crashing into my feet
Seashells waiting to get swept away
Kids yelling, “Let's play!”
No better place to be 


In a KidSpirit poem, young poet Melani Leon captures priceless summer moments at the beach.

No Better Place to Be

Amra Dardagan


Let art be a weapon for sadness, 
Let each color write its own story 
May verses and stanzas forever remain the keys of a suitcases where secrets never told 
Let the song stir up the lovers as they sip glasses of wine, while joy and love play all around people 
How much all art moves -
You will know as soon as true happiness disappears. 
You will tear up and say; "For Art really needed to be fought for."

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Amra Dardagan evocatively expresses the need to defend and appreciate art.

The Art in Oblivion

Abigail Kestle

I dive into the pool and float
into the shallow end.

Our lifeguard sprints
to the shallow end’s steps, 
and waits for me to step out of the water.
Instead, I swim a few laps
before I’m tired from the sun.

When I reach for the wall of the pool again,
I realize that the lifeguard
has been pacing along the pool’s edge.

I taunt her by swimming in circles
in the center of the pool.
She scowls at me,
and continues to pace.

Until she slips on the wet concrete
and falls in.

She splashes water everywhere
as she tries to grab the wall.
I rush over and gently try to lift 
her up and guide her to the steps.

She scrambles out of the water,
shakes herself off,
and then barks at me.

Maybe our dog, Camper, isn’t a good lifeguard after all.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Abigail Kestle portrays a joyful summer experience at the pool.

The Lifeguard

Lucy Liversidge

This past May, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced the indefinite cancellation of commencement ceremonies for the Class of 2020. 

As with any graduating class, this group of seniors is hardworking, driven, and deserving. It is high time for second semester celebration, but quarantine has kept friends away from friends and cancelled culminating events meant to honor accomplishment and dedication. For many who have, for four years, been motivated by the daydream of walking across the graduation stage, surrounded by peers, an alternative future has proven difficult to imagine. At the beginning of this academic year, as any other academic year, I had a subconscious plan. Eight months of studying would open up into a meandering second semester and summer. I readily postponed my fun to when it felt most convenient and responsible, to this time as I had imagined it to be. 

There is little dispute over the importance of fun, especially in childhood. Enjoyment, particularly as it intersects with creativity and imagination, reinforces intelligence and efficiency. And fun or play is different from leisure insofar as it is unstructured and imaginative. But as I have gotten older, as I’ve given maturity my best shot, fun and lightheartedness do not hold the same status as productivity and its factors. Work done with brute force seemed to me more effective. Some of this is cultural and some is personal, but whatever it is, the rapid unfurling of the last several weeks have proven this work ethic to be the opposite, a waste of time. I had planned to have my teenage fun in the last few months of high school, on a schedule I could not guarantee but believed was in my best interest. Sometimes I’ll allow fun so long as it has a point. Reading books for pleasure, writing, and watching documentaries rather than TV are all things I honestly enjoy, but, as I sit at home, I wonder if there was loud, emphatic fun to be had. 

In my free time, I’ve been organizing our attic. It is filled mostly of tangled wires, suitcases and memories of our childhoods (stuffed animals, ceramics, photos). Confined to the rooms I grew up in, surrounded by the memorabilia of my girlhood, I feel myself growing young again. My quarantine has offered childlike freedom with its fewer demands and elusive timescape. Against the will of my teenaged development, I’m at home and milling around. Now, as I return, I wonder if I had true fun back then. Or did I make play time productive? There’s a home video of my sisters and me playing courtroom. I was the judge, with my legs dangling from the seat of an office chair, as Ava defended Chloe’s case or the other way around. This is typical of our memories together, falling in perfect sibling order. I preferred stories when they had a lesson to offer; I chose trivia games, likely because I found them sensible. In the face of my future and of my departure from home, this reversion seems a suddenly obvious step in the transition from girl to woman whose gap is bridged only by what I’ve learned. Here’s another opportunity to add a slat. This month is not a chance to do the years over, but it might be just enough time to reminisce. In our solitude and in our free time, we are being given the chance to reimagine what fun is to us. The sooner we can find our preferred form of play, outside of the status quo and, for me, outside of large group gatherings, the more time we’ll have for true, personalized enjoyment. 

I had always seen this season clearly in my mind. However foggy or uncertain life seemed, I could see just what I was working toward: a cap, a gown, a diploma, a celebration. Since I began at my school in seventh grade, the high school graduation has been held under a billowing white tent. It has always been easy to envision myself as part of the procession. Now, however, I will transition out of school virtually and without the interconnectedness of ceremony and revelry. What’s more, my imagination is failing me. There is no way to render, in color or with words, what the future might look like. I am on a Senior End of Year Committee with eight peers and, while administrative, planning alternatives to hallmark celebratory events has been a challenging creative assignment. We are being asked to imagine gathering in a way truly unprecedented, in a virtual reality only now fully inhabited. For help with this, we might also turn to childhood, when the imagination is most active, when circumstance, accomplishment, environment, and tradition were not requisites for fun, festivity, joy.

I anticipated, even planned on, finding closure and good fun in the end-of-year activities. Prom, Senior Week, Honors’ Day, and Commencement were meant to crown four years of honest, hard work, and growth worth celebrating. I know now that there is no time to postpone the celebration. Waiting until late summer, or January, or my college graduation, or a job acceptance to pat myself on the back, to dance, to throw some sort of hat in the air, is not responsible, is not the smart thing to do. There’s fun and laughing to be done now, amidst feverish study and in the face of the world’s aching. I can’t even be bothered to worry about being cliché as there’s fun in that too. 

I’m full of a feeling like it was dinner. Not regret but growth, stemming from a girlhood well-lived, honest but naïve and nearly finished. 

Brown, S. Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. New York: Avery, 2009.

Robinson, L. Smith, M, M.A., Segal, J, Ph.D., Shubin, J. "The Benefits of Play for Adults." HelpGuide, June 2019.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Lucy Liversidge captures and reflects on the unprecedented experience of graduating high school during a pandemic.

Commencement Means Beginning, Not End

Yifei Wang

“… So, our goal for this semester is to try to motivate our students to push harder at their academic grades…” the speaker stood at the front of the oblong table, speaking so solemnly that a passer-by would view him as a priest at a funeral. 

The lights in the meeting room were blinding, engulfing everyone in an eerie pale glow. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang and the deserted corridors suddenly came alive with footsteps and laughter. They were the pupils from next-door classrooms, breathing in several minutes of freedom: break time. 

The speaker at the front paused for a bit at the noise with a frown settled firmly on his forehead. Clearly irritated, he cleared his throat and continued, “As I was saying, Grade Two is a crucial period of a student’s development. We should try hard to build their passion for study, and frankly, if they are still wasting their time like this, we still have a very long way to go.”

I sat idly beside the window, turning my head every few minutes when there was a general murmur of agreement or confusion around the table. The parents were stationed at both sides of the table, as expressionless as statues. Among them was my dad. He was seated at my usual place in the classroom and was attentively taking note of the speaker’s directives. So were other adults. We students had no definite place to sit down, and could only mill around. That’s how a parent-teacher conference routinely proceeds in China. From a seven-year-old’s point of view, they could be plotting something terrible against us, trying every means to deprive us of our play time. The meeting was anything but a mobilizing party, as it should be. The novelty of this meeting quickly paled and it became nothing but torture. To entertain myself, I tried to count the flow of cars below, wondering if white cars outnumbered the black ones. Soon, my brain throbbed in protest as a random number tried desperately to squeeze in and, with a frustrated growl, I turned my attention back to the speaker, who was by then babbling about students’ creativity.

But dark spots danced at the perimeter of my vision after turning my gaze from the sunny outside street to the gloomy office. I shook my head violently, wanting to clear my vision, and also sincerely hoping that something fun and out of ordinary would happen to this boring summer afternoon. Just as I was about to resume my little game, my eyes caught something near the speaker’s head. A tiny black dot was moving jauntily around his head. My mouth opened in amazement as I stood transfixed on it. A fly! A fly with its little wings and huge eyes was circling the speaker’s head, pausing occasionally on his stark white shirt, enjoying itself.

The speaker gradually sensed another living thing’s presence on his face, for he began to jerk his head from side to side while talking about how to make students concentrate on the teacher in classes. The fly seemed to like the unstable movements for it began to zoom in circles frantically.

The helpless speaker tried to swat it away but only increased the fly’s excitement. It had taken up a completely new strategy. It would circle on top of the speaker’s head, just a few centimeters out of reach, before zooming down and pausing on his face a split second. The moment the speaker felt its contact with his skin, the fly would fly away before his hand could swat it. The speaker was now helpless and hopeless under the vicious attack of the fly, and his beady eyes began to pan around the room, looking for a reliable person to help him. His gaze rested on the man closest to him on the right-hand side. The man shifted uncomfortably in his chair, unwilling to meet his boss’s eyes. He wore a tuxedo which was buttoned up to his neck, hardly suppressing the round belly under the thin cloth. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and his face slowly turned purple like he was short of oxygen.

“On your left cheek, sir.” He gasped, still avoiding looking at the hilarious scene.

The speaker, obviously in a frenzy of anger and embarrassment, drew his hand back and slapped himself squarely on the face. The room was dead silent, and the fly, pleased that it was now the complete center of the attention, made its grand exit while humming a light tune to itself.  

A second later, I was shaking with uncomfortable laughter. Two minutes passed and instead of slowly ebbing away, the joyful notes of my laughter came at a quicker pace. I could feel my whole face slowly turning pink, and then red, and then a deep shade of crimson and my stomach was hurting like crazy. Dad kept shooting me warning looks, but one glance at the five fingerprints on the speaker’s face, and his feeble attempts to remain equanimous, set me off again.  

Dad scooped me up and carried me to the hallway. I had just one last look at the speaker and the rest of the group. The speaker had resumed his monologue, trying hard to act like nothing had happened. But his listeners’ splotchy faces and suppressed grins were the best evidence for the ridiculous event.

The door closed behind us with a loud bang. And with that sound, all the craziness that had happened in the room were long gone. But the string of laughter, which was now connected by the vivid images in my head, formed the strands to keep the joyful notes together. And so, I made my exit, with the ghost of my laughter still echoing in the empty hallway.


In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Yifei Wang takes readers on an imaginative ride through a whimsical childhood memory.

A Hilarious Fly: In the Eyes of a Kid under Colossal Study Stress

Elías Viveros

Every one of us lives in a culture that is different, but I am practically sure that, between all of them, there is a common factor. Most people have a full life based on a series of routines. 

My culture, the Paraguayan culture, does too. A good number of Paraguayan people seem to be so concentrated on daily tasks, and on keeping a routine with common “scenery.” This causes people to ignore important aspects of our lives: creativity, and the need to develop it. Unfortunately, my culture, and the culture of many other people, does not give creativity the seriousness and value that it deserves. By this, I mean that people generally have a misconception of all that creativity involves. This leads them to refer to creativity in a derogatory way, which does not bring anything good for society.

People are more interested in their economic and social position than having fun, entertaining themselves, and leaving their minds and daily chores. In addition, thousands of people think that a fun job is simply not a job, or that a job that involves creativity and expressing our emotions is a waste of time. Even worse, there is a great prejudice regarding people's creative development. People think that creativity and its branches, such as art, drawing, dance, and singing, are merely secondary activities, which do not provide any productivity for society. This way of thinking is a big mistake because it often causes people to feel frustrated and unsatisfied with themselves or with the society in which they live. As human beings, fulfillment means many things, but overall we can say that fulfillment means feeling satisfied with oneself, with the goals accomplished.

Every human being must feel fulfilled to be fully happy. It is important to spend time doing something useful and productive, so that trying and working day by day is rewarding for yourself. This issue is closely related to life goals. It should not be forgotten that once one's aspirations and purposes are achieved, great personal satisfaction is experienced.

About two years ago, I had an experience that guided me to reflect on these types of attitudes. It took place in the high school, which I attend, during a lecture focused on a personal development activity. At one point, the speaker assigned a simple task for all of us. Each of us should stand up, and tell our dreams and goals for the future, such as a profession and career to follow. Everything was going well. Then, it was Karen’s turn. She stood up and began to express her biggest dream, saying: "My biggest dream is to become a professional cartoonist, and through art to reach thousands of people around the world.” This seemed to all of us something quite interesting and worthy of admiration. She continued: “However, it will be so difficult to achieve, considering that my parents think about my dream as something stupid. They see my dream of being an artist as a nonsense profession without meaning that will not bring any benefit to me. And, I am sure that without their support, to become what I wish to be is very difficult, I would say almost impossible.” The activity continued, but those words were recorded in my mind, making me think about what that situation really involved.

Something similar happened with Anabela. I met her in a volunteer activity carried out in a city not far from mine. At that time she was 15 years old. In that activity, we became friends, and we began to talk about various topics. At one moment, she told me about a goal that she wanted to achieve in her life. Anabela had studied classical dance for six years. She had always dreamed of opening a dance academy in the future, and helping many people to develop successfully in the art of dance. Unfortunately, her parents had never supported her in that desire. They wanted their daughter to study any other career. They always saw dance as a merely secondary activity and that it only served as entertainment. Anabela came to fight her parents on several occasions, but their opinion did not change at all. Two years have passed since that conversation we had. To this day we keep in touch, but her parents continue to discourage their daughter's dream. This has undoubtedly generated a feeling of helplessness in Anabela, as she does not have the support of her parents to achieve her goals.

Clearly, those situations are not isolated events. How many people like Karen and Anabela are going through the same thing around the world? I believe most parents themselves are responsible for their child's failure in terms of creative expression. Parents are denying their children the chance to grow as individuals. This should make us think about possible solutions. There are several reasons for the attitude that these parents take. Perhaps the main one is that they worry that the arts might not provide a stable job in the future. They are blinded by the prejudice that has been carried over generations.  

This is a serious mistake, since it is very important that children fully develop their talents, which in the future, if they persevere, will bring them great results in both personal and economic areas. Encouraging creativity actually helps young people to succeed in life even if they do not become artists. The best that parents could do is to allow kids to follow their dreams, even if it seems more risky.

Creativity is beneficial for any age. Creativity helps people to express themselves better and, at the same time, helps develop their abstract thinking, as they will find it easier to solve problems than others who have not developed this side of themselves. In addition, increased creativity helps children to relate more productively and better to both peers and other people. An emphasis on creativity in society could increase self-esteem in many people, because they would stimulate thier own inner resources. It would also promote good communication and sociability as the ability to express your own feelings and ideas can make you more receptive to the thoughts of others.

Enhancing creativity in people from an early age is essential for their general learning. We must also respect the learning times of each individual and give them freedom to develop all their imagination. Culture plays a very important role in all of this. A society that has prejudice against creativity or that simply does not value creativity and art in general, is tying down many people's goals. 

Albert Einstein once said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” The famous scientist's words capture an idea we should take seriously: creativity is part of each person's life. Some people develop it more, others less, but we must stop limiting those who want to empower themselves. We must actively participate in the development of our society, letting people freely express their emotions, whether it is through art or some other means. To continue with a closed mind, and with the same prejudices, will take us back in time.

Creativity, and a sense of fun, gives a person the ability to express his or her own world, and thus feel fulfilled. The best we can do is to support those who may be limited or criticized by others. We can help them achieve their goals and who knows, perhaps we also find our own creative side along the way.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Elías Viveros advocates for more emphasis on creativity and expression in his home nation of Paraguay.

Prejudice Against Creativity

Jasmine Xu

There was a time when I dreamt fantasies
And onto the canvas of my mind's eye 
I daubed with frolics of wild artistry
Bold and gallant my brushstrokes were
Yet now hazed and veiled my artworks lie
Shrouded in mists of clouded memories

I remember my proudest opus was 
That landscape of untold mirages
Slumbering deep in depths of conscience
I shall grope towards the scattered pieces
Seeking to awaken distant inklings
Of lingering mirth and ingenuity

I think the painting had untamed colours
Vibrant and virile the scenery was
Perchance alps crowned in wreaths of stars
Cradled a lake of vermillion fire
Where hungry flames licked a shadow—
A frosty orb of silvery tendrils

There were creatures grazing on meadows
Only the meadows were not green and lush
But broken sandhills of gilded golds
And the creatures were no beast nor human
For they had heads of earths and tails of skies
In this realm of romantic revelries

Now as my mind bears the weight of years
The paint is peeling; the canvas cracking
I feel my oeuvre fading; I see it going
I try to grasp wildly; but I know not how
It slips through the final clutches of mind
Dissolving in airs of fleeting creativity

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Jasmine Xu describes and grapples with a moment of pure inspiration and imagination.

Daydreamer's Lament

Jiayi Liao

There she sat, in the tender caress of dawn. A flaxen waterfall falling gently over her shoulder. Each stroke I added was a touch of sunlight on her hair. Hope and memory in her eyes, her lips speaking the unspoken. 

As I painted a copy of oil painting Little Irene by Pierre Auguste Renoir, I knew I had finally found the girl with the flaxen hair. 

I first came to know her in my piano class three years ago. La fille aux cheveux de lin, translated to “the Girl with the Flaxen Hair”, is a famous piano piece from the first book of Preludes by 20th century French composer Claude Debussy. My piano teacher Mrs. Lyu regarded it as one of her favorite pieces, passionately describing this girl of pure beauty she saw in music. I was attracted but confused: how can you “see” something (or even someone!) in something that’s heard? Back then, for me, sight and hearing were in separate worlds. 

My performance of the piece was fluent and skilled, but Mrs. Lyu told me the girl of the flaxen hair was not there. I was yet to find the soul of the music. Frustrated and confused, I did some research in the hope to “see” the girl in the music. 

To my surprise, after I typed the title into my search engine, an oil painting popped up beside Debussy’s piano piece. The moment I saw it, I felt it was an ideal visualization of the girl with the flaxen hair. It was named Little Irene, painted in 1880 by famous French impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir as a portrait of Banker Cahen D'Anvers’s 8 year old daughter. Irene, with flaxen hair, sits in a garden in serenity, wearing a white dress with a sky-blue hue. Her skin is fair and her lips are cherry. Her eyes look forward into somewhere no one but her knows. That’s the girl I’d love to see in my music.  

I tried hard to keep the image in mind as my fingers moved on the piano keys, but I still found the connection vague and abstract. How could what you hear relate to what you see, when one is constantly flowing whereas the other is frozen? I could tell the girl I saw in Renoir’s painting was not in my music, though I had no idea how I could possibly find her. I almost gave up with the piece until I got to paint a copy of Little Irene in the summer, several months after I came to know it. 

Painted by numerous swift and broken strokes without any distinct lines, Little Irene was representative of impressionistic style, which sought to capture the instant fluidity of light and air in the imperceptible elapses time. I re-experienced the process of Renoir’s creation of Irene as I added each stroke to the canvas. Suddenly, she was not sitting still but moving with life. I could feel sunlight dancing on her flaxen hair with each stroke of brush. As I lit up her eyes with a dip of bright paint on the brush, a light of innocence and hope unique to a little girl glittered in her eyes. 

Then I suddenly understood why Debussy was known as the founder of Impressionism in music. Wasn’t the process of the painting just like the procession of the music? Notes in Debussy’s music, overlapped and interweaved on the palette of music, were just like strokes in Renoir’s painting. Both Debussy’s piano piece and Renoir’s oil painting vividly depicted the girl with the flaxen hair and captured the fluidity of light, which was the essence of Impressionism. 

I finally understood the very true old saying, “music is the flowing art, art is the frozen music.” Music is in time while art is in space. Sight and hearing are separable but not separated. Both are ways in which we approach, perceive, and express the world. When I played the piece again, the girl in the painting and the girl in the music were one. 

Recently, I learnt that Debussy was deeply fond of art and poetry. He once used some impressionistic paintings for covers of his music albums. In fact, his lovely prelude The Girl with the Flaxen Hair was inspired by a poem with the same title by a French poet Charles-Marie René Leconte de Lisle. Here is the first stanza of the poem: 

“On the grass, sitting in flowers
Who sings since the fresh morning?
It is the maiden with the flaxen hair
The lovely one with lips like cherries.”

The poem painted a vivid image that left me with a similar impression as Little Irene. The girl with “the flaxen hair” and “lips like cherries” walked out from the lines. No wonders people call poetry “the art of words." As I read through the poem, painted Little Irene, and played the music piece, I felt an innocent beauty that transcended all forms. The girl with the flaxen hair was really alive in both worlds of sight and hearing. After all, the two worlds are in fact one world, the one we live in. Music, painting, poetry, and more. All come from life and can bring the same idea back to life. 

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Jiayi Liao takes readers through her discovery of the intertwined nature of music and painting.

The Girl with the Flaxen Hair

Botao Ju

Inspired by William Blake’s The Tyger (1794)

Bike Bike, on my back, 
Carry thou across the dense bush to thy paradise.
What genius design and forge,
Could form thy lightweight body with a full suspension.

Cross the country trail with your tie,
Roar up the steep mountain slope with my thigh.
Feeling the warm breeze blowing over my body,
This is my desire for a leisure life. 

Sometimes we go crazy
Into the remotest part of the forest,
No noise of the city, nor pressure from academics,
But a fine world belongs to thee and I. 

As an old chap of mine,
Thou take me exploring the great natural world,
Bringing me loads of joy on the road,
While I give thee all the passion I have.

Bike Bike, on my back, 
Take thou across the dense brush back to the shed
What genius design and forge,
Could form thy lightweight body with a full suspension.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Botao Ju pays high-flying homage to his machine of adventure: the bicycle.

The Bike

Anahis Luna

Overlook the
sneer
passing remark
scornful glare
Smells so foul to
drench the neighborhoods in
capes of pity and shame

Held threadbare only by the
dreams of its people
Dug by
calloused hands
Cracked and tangled and
placed upon the Mississippi delta with
Streams that carved canyons and
Eroded the mountains of your spine and
Stained the concrete jungle a deep, deep
Blue

A Blue that
echoes in my soul and
Keeps
One
Steady
Beat.
That seeps through brick walls like
needlework that traces
Your veins and
marks our streets
Chips away at plaster that leaves
You bare and reveals the
skeleton of a man
with broken bones
But who refuses to fall

It coaxes a smile and swells
a pride
that unfurls and
sweeps and curls around
my ears and
Beats through my chest and
intertwines our hands
into one

I didn’t marry a man
I married a city
And I said, “I do.”

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Anahis Luna captures the heart and soul of her home city, and her love and belief in it.

I Know Memphis

Pahal Bhasin

In the animated movie Up, an odd co’UP’le, Carl Fredricksen (dubbed by Ed Asner) and Ellie Fedricksen (Elie Docter), plan an adventure to Paradise Falls, South America, as children, to follow famous explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). 

Carl is trying to complete his wife’s adventure, Russell is trying to get his last badge for his wilderness course, and Dug wants Carl to be his master. This movie is intended for kids, but with parental guidance, because of a few potentially frightening scenes involving a band of trained talking dogs trying to get rid of the protagonists, some moments where characters almost fall from a floating house, and some guns firing. I have personally loved watching Up since I was five years old. And my experience of watching it has not changed drastically since. I still enjoy the colorful balloons on Carl’s house, the savings jar, and every animation because of how colorful it is! Every year I have a throwback to the first time I saw it. It’s always a nostalgic experience.

For me, Up is an extremely inspiring and exciting movie which can be enjoyed more than once. The movie has humor, creativity, and emotion. The unique characters, like Dug and Russell, give it great variation. I love Dug's interesting role as a talking dog and his signature dialogue: “My name is Dug. I have just met you, and I love you.” It adds a perfect blend of cuteness and humor to the movie. Along with Dug, Russell is such an exciting character and the best wilderness explorer I have ever seen. Mixed with adventure, the movie has mesmerizing animation, with the amazing idea of a balloon-floating house and the colorful bird, Kevin. The theme song of the movie is so heartwarming and a mixture of joy and sadness. Listening to it just makes me calm and peaceful. Even the voice actors make the movie so realistic and lively. They give the characters their personality which totally suits them. 

Up is a film about getting old, and about realising that life is not how you imagined it to be, as much as you might try to make it otherwise. But it’s also a film about love, compassion, and making sure that every day counts. It is love that can find its way through the most difficult situations. The movie is also about never giving up and being compassionate, making every day count, and achieving what you want either for yourself or someone you love. Which is exactly what Carl does. 

I believe Up is one of the best movies that the computer animation company Pixar has made, along with Brave and Toy Story. The movie is directed by Pete Docter, the story is by Tom McCarthy, Pete Docter, and Bob Peterson, and I give the movie five stars out of five stars. Even though the movie is animated and fictional, I can feel the smile on my face when Carl is young, I rub a tear in my eye when Ellie passes away, and I hear my laughter when Dug convinces Carl that he is his owner! Up is just very heart-touching and pleasing. And in the end, I want to cross my heart and tell you that there’s nowhere to go but up!

In a KidSpirit Media Review, young writer Pahal Bhasin extols the universal appeal of the movie, Up, and describes the reasons for her lifelong love for the film.

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