Tag: Story Time

Pondathon II: Prologue – We’re Going to Save the Forest! [Readathon Information]

CW @ The Quiet Pond18 Comments
Pondathon II: The Quiet Pond's Story-Driven Readathon

Pondathon II is a year-long gardening-themed readathon hosted by The Quiet Pond! Help us restore the forest by reading to earn plants and decorate your own garden. For more information about Pondathon, read our Readathon Information Post or check out our Pondathon II Portal.

The story:

It’s a warm morning when you decide to visit your friends at the Pond. It’s been awhile since you’ve seen them; you miss everyone’s smiles, and if the letter you received, a message scrawled on a single oak leaf, is any indication, you have a feeling that they miss you too.

“Friend,” the letter begins (and you can hear Xiaolong’s voice), “It’s been awhile since we’ve seen you. Gen asks how you’ve been! Can you come visit us sometime? We are having a Very Important Pond Meeting and it’s important that you’re there too!”

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Story Time – April Fools: A Spell Goes Terribly Wrong – or Right? – at the Pond!

CW @ The Quiet Pond8 Comments

It’s the first of April today – a new month and a new beginning!

You decide to meet your friends at the Pond today; it’s been awhile since you visited and had a good chat with them. After their silly antics from two years ago (has time really flown so fast?), you wonder whether the Pond friends will be up to today.

You pass through the magical boundary of the Pond – and you immediately feel the magic, warm and fuzzy – but when you come through the other side…

Oh my goodness.

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Book Recommendations & Story-Time: Happy Lunar New Year!

CW @ The Quiet Pond1 Comment
Book Recommendations & Story-Time: Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year to you, friends! Whether you are celebrating Chinese New Year, Tết, Shōgatsu, Seollal, or Tsagaan Sar today, we wish you all a wonderful, joyful, and prosperous new year.

Lunar New Year is one of my favourite days of the year. I love the festivities, connecting with my family, taking a moment to pause and reflect on the last year, and also the wonderful food that bring us all together. To celebrate this auspicious day, let’s share what the Pond friends got up to for Lunar New Year in today’s Story-Time, and we’ll close with some awesome books where Lunar New Year happened in the story!

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Story-Time: Our Third Pond-Mas – the Pond Friends Carol and Celebrate a Special Anniversary

CW @ The Quiet Pond1 Comment

You make your way towards The Pond, noticing the cold air nipping at your neck where your hairline meets the wool collar of your peacoat. As you brush aside the drooping branches of the willow tree marking the entrance, the absence of Xiaolong’s warm welcome is alarming. “I wonder where everyone is,” you think, “I can’t have Pondmas without my friends! They’re like my family!”

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Monthly Wrap-Up: November 2020 – Joce Shares Pondsgiving, CW’s Favourite Middle-Grade Reads, and Skye Reads More Fantasies!

CW @ The Quiet Pond2 Comments
Monthly Wrap-Up: November 2020 - Joce Shares Pondsgiving, CW's Favourite Middle-Grade Reads, and Skye Reads More Fantasies!

Joce Opens Pondsgiving & Shares a Story-Time

This year, and every year, we hold Pondsgiving to share a meal and the found family we have built amongst the inhabitants. In our everyday lives, particularly the American voices in the book community, we need to strive to decolonize Thanksgiving. This article by M. Karlos Baca (Tewa/Dinè/Nuuciu), an Indigenous Foods Activist, founder of Taste of Native Cuisine, and a cofounder of the I-Collective, explores ways to decolonize Thanksgiving and revive Indigenous relationships with food. The Pond is full of myth, magic, and lore, and in these traditions, we eradicate the false narrative we have been told about glorifying pilgrimage in American history, and retell history in the ways that stories should have been initially told.

We are taking special care to decolonize our Thanksgiving dinner at the Pond, using methods and ideologies from this interview with Chef Nephi Craig, a Navajo member of the White Mountain Apache tribe of Whiteriver, Arizona, and founder of the Native American Culinary Association.

We welcome you to our Pondsgiving dinner. We hope you’ll stay awhile.

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