February 2024 Bears

Storyteller 1Storyteller 2Storyteller 3 Maroochy: villager whose name means “Black Swan” Adina: Maroochy’s sweatheart Bunji: villager who joins Maroochy Toba: companion to Maroochy and Bunji STORYTELLER 1: Long ago, some young men left their camp. M

ANSWER TO WHERE IN THE WORLD ON PAGE 33: A memorial to fisherman lost at sea stands at Gloucester, Massachusetts, which is a major U.S. fishing port. ■

Hundreds of years ago, even the bravest sailors dreaded the Kraken, a terrifying sea monster that sank ships and had a taste for human flesh. Today, we know that this monster was based on a super-sized squid or octopus. Back in the day, people would

More than a thousand monster hunters have claimed to see something strange swimming in the deep, dark waters of Loch Ness. But you don’t have to travel to Scotland to look for the legend. With a little imagination, you can spot a sea serpent right in

Fill in the speech bubble for this photograph. Have your parent or legal guardian send your idea, with your name, to faces@cricketmedia.com and include a note that says “Your caption is your original work and FACES has permission to publish it in pri

Sailors traveling through dangerous waters heard a song so irresistible that they turned off course to seek its origin. Without warning, their vessels soon crashed into the rocks of the flowered, corpse-strewn island of Anthemoessa near Greece. So sa

Do you know what this is? ANSWER TO MYSTERY PHOTO ON INSIDE FRONT COVER: A close-up view reveals the many suckers on an octopus’s arm. ■

3 ghost ship cursed to sail on forever (two words)4 author of “The Little Mermaid,” Hans Christian ______5 large marine reptile that supposedly became extinct during the time of the dinosaurs9 Lord of the Sea, according to Greek mythology11 creatures

In the 1500s, ships were still developing into the vessels we know today. This limited the ability of people to explore the oceans and observe animals in their natural environments. Sailors and traders, though, did catch glimpses of some sea creature

Pick up any medieval or early modern map, and you will find seas brimming with depictions of fearsome beasts. Mapmakers of those times thought these creatures lurked beneath the water’s surface. Among such a diversity of terrifying creatures, there i

The wistful Little Mermaid statue gazes out to sea. She is caught between the worlds of merpeople and humans. Perched on a rock at Langelinie, Copenhagen’s harbor entrance to the sea, she has served as Denmark’s most famous landmark for more than 100

Can you spot the 10 differences between these two underwater scenes? Answers on page 48. April 2024 Volume 40 Number 07 cricketmedia.com $6.95 ANSWERS TO DEEP SEA MYSTERY ON BACK COVER:

Use the outline below as the base for a sea creature of your own imagination. Be creative and have fun. Add any features you would like to include—wings, arms, teeth, hair—you decide! Email your creation to FACES Sea Serpent at faces@cricketmedia.com

Poseidon is the lord of the sea, according to Greek mythology. Let’s pretend you are exploring his underwater palace looking for treasure. It’s a nice place to visit . . . if Poseidon isn’t around. He’s moody and irascible and is called the “Earth Sh

Long before they knew that the world was not flat, ancient mapmakers would often put images of monsters and mermaids and other mythical creatures at the edge of their maps. This was meant to show places that were unknown or unexplored. One of these l

Undamaged vessels floating empty in the middle of the ocean . . . Cargo ships sunk in storms, only to be spotted years later sailing in the same waters where they went down . . . “Bad luck” ships abandoned by their crews . . . Sailors have been telli

Mythical sea creatures such as mermaids are usually associated with oceans. However, there’s an entire set of watery mythological creatures that live in the sky. Fittingly, they live in an area of the night sky that is referred to as the “sea of star

In the past, when people believed that the world was flat, cartographers drew unknown ocean areas at the edges of their ancient maps with the legend “here there by monsters. Today, we know the world is round, but some people still believe that there

Send your design to FACES at Cricket Media, 1 East Erie St., Suite 525, PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611 or e-mail it to faces@cricketmedia.com by April 18, 2024. Your artwork could appear in an upcoming issue of FACES. ■

Mangroves hug the coasts of tropical lands. The mangroves’ trees and bushes have adapted to live in the brackish waters near the shore. Like stilts, the roots of these trees hold the trunk and branches above the salty water. These roots twist and tur

January 2024 Winter

Cradle a whole clove in your hand and look at it closely. What does this remarkable spice remind you of? If you think it looks like a nail, then you have hit the nail right on the head. In fact, the words for clove and nail are the same in many langu

The Amazon Rainforest in South America is one of the most important forests in the world, and fig trees are one of the most important species in tropical rainforests. Of the 150 fig species in the Amazon, one of the most successful survivors is the s

It sounds like it might swallow up large parts of a major city, but Pando isn’t going to hurt anyone. It has been considered Earth’s oldest living organism (somewhere between 14,000 and 80,000 years old) and its heaviest (weighing in at 13 million po

ANSWER TO AMAZING RAINFORESTS on back cover: March 2024 Volume 40 Number 06 cricketmedia.com $6.95 ■

Some of the world’s most amazing trees are the redwoods. They have been on Earth for millions of years, with ancestors that were alive at the time of the dinosaurs. People have always been amazed by their size and age. Because they have been protecte

This is a story of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Over the past 100 million years, dense forests grew to cover more than half the Earth. As humans began to flourish, we cleared the forests for our own uses. Today, rainforests the size of 20 football

4 the kauri tree is sacred to the indigenous people of this island 7 this type of forest experiences long, cold winters 8 A ______ species has a high impact on how its ecosystem functions.10 Earth’s tallest tree 1 the oldest living sequoia (two wor