Chicken Soup for the Soul

[Deleted]

There was a Chicken Soup TV show on PAX at like 2 AM when I was in college. Did anyone else ever come across this? The show was like...re-enactments from Unsolved Mysteries, only with fuzzy pink bunny slippers.

[Deleted]

My sister doesn't really read many books so I was intrigued when she started reading Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. I flipped through a few of the stories because I thought it was more straight up advice (sort of like What to Expect When You're Expecting) rather than some sickly sweet stories designed to teach lessons of hope (or something). Gross. I used to think that reading anything was better than reading nothing but... now I'm not sure.

I dated a guy who owned the original Chicken Soup for the Soul (and a good number of the Left Behind books). I never thought I would start going off of a guy because of his reading material but, sure enough, it happened with that guy.

[mares]

I'm about to admit something that is very embarrassing...please don't revoke my posting pass for this.

here goes...

I am published in one of the Chicken Soup Books. I won't tell you which one, but it is one of the teenage ones. It is a poem...a very stereotypical Chicken Soup empowerment/feel good about yourself poems. But in my defense, I wrote it when I was a freshman in high school, and I got $300 for it. So it's really not all bad, and I mean, I can say I'm published, which is cool, but I really don't like to admit that it is in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book.

That's all. Please forgive me.

[underjoyed]

I'm about to admit something that is very embarrassing...please don't revoke my posting pass for this.

here goes...

I am published in one of the Chicken Soup Books.

No need whatsoever to ask for forgiveness as far as I'm concerned. Hell, if someone offered me $300.00 to come up with one of those things, I'd write one too. Especially as a high school freshman, to whom $300.00 would've seemed an enormous amount (at any rate, artistic integrity only seems to be widely admired, in most cases, after you're dead. Likely as a result of starvation.)

If I may ask Mares...how did this come about? Did you write the poem for an unrelated reason and then submit it or did you write it with the Chicken Soup Books in mind?

[dwanollah]

Aw, thanks, y'all!

but it is one of the teenage ones. It is a poem...

There's your get-out-of-jail-free card, hon!

I dated a guy who owned the original Chicken Soup for the Soul (and a good number of the Left Behind books). I never thought I would start going off of a guy because of his reading material but, sure enough, it happened with that guy.

*hysterical laughter*

[mares]

Well, my grandmother had gotten me the Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul Journal back in the day, and one of the prompts in it encouraged you to write a poem or something, so I did, and for some reason felt compelled to send it in...I had honestly forgotten about it until a couple years later when I got a letter from them saying they wanted to publish it. It was definitely awesome; that was my first paycheck ever! and especially considering that I have always wanted a career involving writing of some sort, it was very encouraging to have it published - in fact, because of that, I have always had a little more faith in myself as a writer. It's crazy, they actually put the poem on a Chicken Soup greeting card, too. Very exciting for my 14-15 year-old self at the time.

[topher]

Now, you have to share it with us. Please.

[Ripley]

Mares, you are deserving of our respect, if only for the fact that they actually paid you. I seem to remember hearing stories that contributors were either underpaid or not paid at all ("The fact that you are published should be enough!").

[Shalamar]

I am ashamed to confess that one of those stories really got to me until I thought about it a bit more. It was the one about the guy who was to meet a blind date on the corner, and he was told that she'd be wearing a red carnation. When he showed up, the only woman who fit the description was at least 20 years older than he. Swallowing his disappointment, he asked her where she'd like to have dinner, only to be told "Son, I'm not the woman you're waiting for. She's in that cafe over there. She wanted to find out what kind of man you were, and now she knows, and here she comes!" Happy ending, flowers, violins, etc.

I actually thought that was sweet - until, as I said, I thought about it. "So, let me get this straight - that woman went up to an older woman and said "Yo, put on this carnation and pretend to be me, because you're old. If that guy still wants to boink you, he's the man for me!" Yeesh.

[kellymt]

The Chicken Soup story I hate is about the little boy whose sister is ill, and she needs a blood transfusion. And for some contrived stupid reason, there's no blood of her type in the blood bank and the only person in the family with the same type as her little brother. So they go to ask him if he'll donate some blood to his sister, and he thinks about it and says yes. So they start the donation, and after a few minutes the little boy asks the nurse when he'll die, because he's just a little boy, and he thinks that donating blood will kill you, but he loves his sister so much that he was willing to die for her.

Rather than being inspired, I wonder why no one cared enough to sit down with this poor kid and explain what blood transfusion is, why his sister needed it, exactly what would happen to him, and answer his questions. I mean, he's a kid, but he deserves that much respect. I guess that's not so cute, though.