[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.
Check out the most recent issue of The Voice, Young Writers Project’s monthly digital magazine. Click here.
Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.
YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.
Janet McIntosh Barkdoll, 17, of Shoreham writes a whimsical and light-hearted exchange between a toad and a spider. She says: “This exchange was prompted by two things. The first was the fact that we have new chickens that we raised as chicks in the spring. Since they are young hens, they are laying many eggs and we were giving eggs away to my good friend Ezra and his family. One day on the way home from school, we were talking about making eggs and Ezra mentioned making “Egg in a Basket,” where you cut out a hole in a slice of bread and fry an egg in the hole. My brother and I used to make this all the time when we were maybe 10 and 12, only we called it “Toad in a Hole.” Ezra pointed out that this name makes no sense because, as he exclaimed, “How is the egg a toad? It’s an egg!” I held that “Egg in a Basket” is boring, and I am much more fond of the Toad in a Hole name …
“The second thing that prompted “Toad in a Hole” was a prompt from a meeting of our school literary magazine. The prompt was: “Write about or from the perspective of food that has gone bad.” … So, it was the topic of spoiled food, the abundance of eggs, and the recent conversation about eggs fried inside cut-out bread that together sprouted this piece.
“The spider-man is because Ezra takes close-up photos of the spiders he finds in his room.”
Toad in a Hole
By Janet McIntosh Barkdoll
[T]he toad was in a hole.
“Why are you in a hole?” asked the spider-man.
“I am in a hole because I want to be in a hole,” responded the toad.
“Oh,” said the spider-man. “That’s cool.”
“It is,” said the toad. “But I have a question for you.”
The spider-man smiled.
“Why am I an egg?” asked the toad.
“Well,” said the spider-man, “I am not sure. I think it is because your parents named you an egg.”
“Hmm,” said the toad. “I think you must be right. … What did your parents name you?”
“They named me Ezra,” said the spider-man.
“Why did they name you Ezra?” asked the toad. “You’re not an Ezra.”
“I know,” said the spider-man. “But you’re not an egg.”
