“Coconut Pudding” is a short story by Tristan Hui, age 12, written from the first-person perspective of Thu. Thu lives in rural Vietnam with his older brother, Bao; his parents; and his grandma. He is proud to be his grandma’s favorite. Early in the story, Thu’s grandma tells him she is ready to die. But then, Thu’s mother, who he calls Má, has a baby, Minh. Grandma loves Minh so much she decides to live a little longer.  We flash forward in time. Now Minh is a bit older and can talk and walk. She is a sickly child, and one day she develops a fever. The doctor says it’s just a cold, but it doesn’t go away. Still, Thu refuses to share his coconut pudding with her. After Minh is sick for three weeks, Thu’s grandma starts to cry, and begs Thu to take her to the hospital in the nearby city. Thu agrees, and the two take a long journey—a boat ride, a long bus ride, and a walk. Finally, they get to the hospital, where they’re told Minh has the flu. The night they get home, though, their Grandma dies. Thu is incredibly sad and doesn’t want to leave his hammock. But then he hears a peddler outside selling coconut pudding. He buys some for Minh and himself and, for the first time ever, they hug.  What makes the characters in this story strong? Though there are many characters in this story, the one we get to know the best is the protagonist, Thu. Throughout the story, Thu develops a lot as a character. This change is part of what makes him such a strong, compelling protagonist.  At the outset of the story, the first thing we learn about Thu is that he’s had to compete for the attention of the adults in his life—and that this competition is ongoing.  I used to be Grandma’s favorite. She told me it was because when I was born, she was the first to hold me. “No one can replace you, Thu,” she would say, taking me onto her lap and stroking my dark hair. “No one.” Bao, my older brother, was Grandpa’s favorite. Grandpa’s life had been centered around him, and sometimes it seemed like I was Grandma’s only cháu trai, her only grandson. I loved it. This passage opens the story, and it tells us a lot right away. One of the most notable parts of the opening is the subtle way we learn that all is not right in Thu’s world. Thu used to be Grandma’s favorite—but it is implied this is no longer true. With the arrival of Minh, we learn the source of that “used to.” Grandma tells Thu that she is ready to die. But soon after: But in July, Má found out that she was pregnant. I would have a little sister.  Everything changed. When Grandma heard that, she vowed to live until that baby was born. And sure enough, when the baby is born, Grandma loves her “with all her heart.” No longer the only favorite, Thu’s responsibilities increase. Though he never says outright that he is frustrated with his sister, we can feel it in how he treats her: On the way home, I stop at the floating market and buy a bowl of noodle soup for us to share, and a little plate of coconut pudding from an old man wearing a blue shirt, just for me. Minh reaches for my full hands, but I lift the plate out of her reach. “Not for you.” “Thu . . . ” she whines. “No.” She sighs dramatically, and I glare down at her. She sighs again, and I pop the last pudding scoop into my mouth. Ha. Even when his sister is sick, Thu resents her and wants to keep the things he loves the most in life for himself. We begin to wonder whether coconut pudding is really a stand-in for something else that Thu values that he feels his sister is taking away—like their grandma.  When Minh gets sick, Thu agrees to take her to the hospital, but not because her well-being is at the top of his mind: Yesterday, Minh’s fever spiked. She refused to drink water, and about halfway through the night, Grandma started to cry. She begged me to bring Minh to the hospital in Battambang. I agreed. It’s a chance to regain my place, to be Grandma’s favorite again. Maybe she’ll find the will to live longer. The journey is harrowing, but we can tell throughout it that, in spite of himself, Thu wants to care for his younger sister. He fights hard to get her to the hospital, to get her examined, and to get her home. But we don’t really see the impact all of this has on their relationship until the end of the story, when Grandma dies. In the final scene, Thu hears the familiar sounds of the peddler selling coconut pudding. And he feels a surprising emotion: guilt. In the final scene, the two siblings share coconut pudding together.  “Careful,” I laugh. “Don’t choke!” She beams up at me, cup empty, face covered in pudding. “Thank you!” She wraps her arms around my leg and squeezes. A hug. I don’t think Minh’s ever hugged me before. It’s nice. I crouch down, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. I hug her back. Once again, the character development here is subtle. We don’t hear it directly—rather, we sense it through the ways in which Thu acts. With his grandma gone, there isn’t anyone to force Thu to be a good big brother—he does it of his own accord.  Discussion questions: What are moments in the story where we learn something about a character through their actions instead of their words? At what point in the story do you sense a change in how Thu thinks about Minh? Does it just come at the end, or can you find clues earlier on?

“Locked Out of Kindergarten” is a personal narrative written in the first person past tense by Kateri Escober Doran, age 12. The story opens in a kindergarten classroom at dance time. The students are rocking out to “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and having an absolute ball. Mid dance party, our protagonist, Kate, has to use the bathroom and goes to ask the teacher. Unfortunately, the teacher assigns her the worst possible bathroom buddy: Chloe, who, at age six, is the oldest student in the class and intimidates Kate. Chloe also controls a coveted commodity in the classroom: a heart-shaped stencil that she always gets to first at art time and always gives to a different classmate—but never Kate.  Anyway, Kate and Chloe go to the bathroom, and Kate reflects on how perhaps Chloe is just older than her and at a different place in the “ladder of life.” When they get back to the classroom, they find it locked. Because it is dance time, the teacher cannot hear them knocking. Chloe reveals that she is too afraid to try to go find another teacher because she may have to pass the preschool classroom, where a boy who is mean to her is. So Kate goes it alone, but in the end she panics too and runs back to Chloe. The two of them bond over their shared fear of the hallway, and then decide to try to go to the principal’s office together as allies. But then the principal finds them and lets them back in. Back in class, Kate sees Chloe sitting alone and goes up to join her. Chloe tries to give Kate the heart stencil, and Kate suggests they share it. In the end, they both fill in the heart stencil together.  What makes the characters in this story strong? When writing about kindergarteners, it is so easy to write one-dimensional characters! This is because when people are very young, they often communicate and think in ways that don’t come across as well with dialogue. But in this narrative, the writer is able to effectively craft three-dimensional, realistic characters. I think this is achieved through Kate’s internal monologue.  Throughout the piece, Kate’s narrative voice is a hilarious constant: punchy, insightful, and very precocious for a kindergartener. “All right,” said Ms. Winnie. She scanned the group of my still-dancing classmates shouting, “Hooray!” whenever the song told them to do so. She stood there for what seemed to me like a very long time, her gaze flicking over each of her students, considering them individually, for the sole purpose of selecting them to be my bathroom buddy. There’s almost a deadpan and sarcastic nature to the descriptions at times. Aside from the internal monologue, the story is full of dialogue between Kate and Chloe that tells us all kinds of things about them. But because our protagonists are so young, a lot of what we learn about them comes from their actions or their mannerisms.  In the case of Kate, we learn a lot about her from her thoughts. She says early on in the story that she sees life as a ladder. “I was afraid of heights; I didn’t think I would ever be able to leave the bottom step if I couldn’t make it up to the next one.” This theme of the ladder recurs throughout the story. Kate’s fear of getting older is clear as she walks down the hallway past the second-grade classroom on her way to the principal’s office.  I was passing by the second-grade classroom. I wondered what the second-graders were doing in there. I had heard that the students sat at desks in rows, that they never had time to play except at recess, that they spent most of the day sitting down, that everyone was expected to know how to read, to hold a pencil correctly, to color within the lines. I had heard their world was full of expectations. . . . They emerged from [Mrs. Holloway’s] classroom as part of things, moving up the next step on the ladder that was life. Here, we get a real sense for Kate’s fears about the future through her imagination of what second grade must be like. It helps us understand her feelings toward Chloe, who is older than her. The fear eventually overwhelms Kate: The AC was roaring, freezing me from the inside out. The cacophony rose in a deafening crescendo. It was bright noise, blinding noise, noise of every color. The hall was closing in on me. Kate runs away, back to Chloe. Here, descriptions allow us to extrapolate insights that the protagonist may not have had—like that she was afraid. Discussion questions: What are some moments in the story where we learn something about a character through their actions rather than their words? How does the writer use humor to build a strong narrative voice? Locked Out of Kindergarten “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!” Clap, clap! “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!” Clap, clap! We were dancing on the mat in the kindergarten classroom. Music was blasting from our teacher’s magical silver box, which was sitting in the corner on a little plastic chair. Our teacher, Ms. Winnie, stood facing us while we danced, swaying to the music and clapping her hands along with us. Clap, clap! I loved dancing time. Other than playtime, it was my favorite time of day. “If you’re happy and you know it, stomp your feet!” Stomp, stomp! I turned around to see how my friends were getting along. Ella, instead of stomping her feet, was hopping on one, her waist-length, jet-black hair flapping around her shoulders. Ava, the resident drama queen and aspiring secret agent, spun around and twirled, her light-brown pigtails flopping behind her. We had all pretty much forgotten what movement we were supposed to be making at this point, and we probably didn’t care. I watched as

“The Cookie Jar,” by Isabelle Chapman, follows the story of eleven-year-old Elsie in close third-person narration. It’s the spring of 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, and Elsie and her family are quarantined in their house. Elsie’s passion in life, recently, has become a cookie jar. Before quarantine, she brought it with her everywhere but hid it in her duffle bag so her friends wouldn’t make fun of her. Staying home with her family all the time, she is able to embrace her passion for the cookie jar fully. She loves it, values it, and feels extremely protective of it. One day, Elsie’s family finally gets the masks they ordered months prior. They decide to go to the beach to celebrate, though Elsie is a bit nervous that this isn’t a good idea with the virus around. Elsie insists on bringing her cookie jar, and her mother eventually agrees. The beach is weirdly empty, and Elsie’ sister convinces her to go into the water. Elsie loses her cookie jar in the water and starts to cry. She feels guilty, ashamed, and sad. At the end of the story, her mother agrees to get her another cookie jar but says it can’t leave the kitchen. Elsie eagerly agrees. Finally, she is able to enjoy the day at the beach, knowing she will have a new cookie jar soon. What makes the characters in this story strong? One way to write strong, convincing characters is to give them unique attributes. Most people have idiosyncrasies galore, and our passions are often more odd and complex than “sports” or “movies.” But it can be easy to forget this when writing characters—we focus on plot at the expense of those details that help bring someone to life. In “The Cookie Jar,” Isabella Chapman expertly crafts a truly unusual protagonist whose unlikely love of a cookie jar—not cookies, but their container—immediately makes her feel just strange enough to be completely authentic.  It seemed to Elsie that the more accessible something was, the less enticing it subsequently became. To her luck, though, it never seemed that way with her cookie jar. She found that she contained the capacity to stare at it for hours upon hours, doing nothing other than pondering its unique existence and inherent kindness (in spite of being an inanimate object). Sometimes, she felt herself choking up when she thought about how it just held all kinds of cookies, no matter their size, quality, or type. . . . The thought made Elsie feel especially grateful for her beautiful, non-judgmental jar. In the story, the writer often uses humor to tell us more complicated truths about characters. The passage above, for example, gives us a hilarious window into Elsie’s love for the cookie jar, but it also tells us something more: Elsie values kindness, and dislikes judgemental qualities, in cookie jars but also perhaps in people. Throughout the story, Elsie’s relationship to the cookie jar helps us learn about her social relationships: Of course, she couldn’t show it to her friends. First of all, they wouldn’t understand. And second of all, even beyond the realm of being unable to comprehend her immense attachment to this jar of porcelain, they would make fun of her for it. As we see above, Elsie is very concerned about the judgment of her friends—so concerned that she lugs around a cookie jar in secret for years, covering it with other objects in her bag. Perhaps the nonjudgemental-ness she admires in the cookie jar is a quality she wishes she could find in those around her. Like Elsie, her siblings also have unique attributes that both make the story more fun to read and point to deeper truths about them or the world they live in. Elsie’s brother, Tom, for example, believes that the coronavirus is a hoax designed by an army of shapeshifting reptiles, a belief that might seem absurd or even funny on the surface, until the reader remembers that many people really do believe this. Just like Elsie loving a cookie jar, Tom’s strange beliefs aren’t just wacky and unique for the sake of writing a wacky, unique character—rather, they point to difficult truths. Finally, I can’t forget Elsie’s younger sister, Marsha, who spends much of the story trying to convince everyone to let her make cookies with dead crabs. At one point, she interrupts Elsie, who is deep in contemplation over how different the beach feels during the pandemic: Unfortunately, she was interrupted from her deep thought process by Marsha, who seemed to be holding up a seashell of some sorts in one hand and a dead crab in the other. “Pay attention! I’ll ask you again: which seashell would you prefer to have in the cookies? Tom thinks I should use the beige one,” she said, pointing to the actual seashell, “which makes me think I should probably use the blue.” She tapped the dead crab. “What do you think, Elsie?” Part of what’s striking about this moment—besides the idea of crab chocolate chip cookies—is that Marsha, even through her strange and gross idea, seems to recognize that her sister is sad and wants to help. This is one moment of many that suggests that maybe Marsha’s whimsical nature isn’t just for fun—maybe she is trying to use humor as a tool to reach her siblings who are struggling. The moment with the crabs could have happened at any point in the story. But by letting us learn more about a character during a moment of tension and stress, the writer successfully uses unique characters to develop a nuanced plot.  Discussion questions: Point out a moment where a character’s action reveals something deeper about them.  Of all objects, why do you think the writer chose to focus on a cookie jar? Would the story have been different if the object Elsie was obsessed with was, say, a watering can?  Do you think the mother is a believable character? Why or why not? The

“Friends” is a short story written in the close third-person perspective. It follows Naomi Keith, a twelve-year-old living in a small town in Florida. Every day, Naomi takes the same walk with her best (and only) friend, Oscar Hernandez, who she has known since preschool. They play the same people-watching game on each walk and always end up at the smoothie shack, where they each order a mango smoothie.  But one day, Oscar ditches Naomi mid-walk to go hang out with some boys who are skateboarding. Naomi is incensed—Oscar doesn’t even skateboard, and the two of them had decided long ago that these boys weren’t worth their time. But each day that week, Oscar skips their walks and hangs out with the skateboarding boys instead.  Without her daily walks with Oscar, Naomi begins to change up her routine. She starts walking a different route in the afternoons, and even changes her order at the smoothie shack to raspberry-lime. Even with her new routine, Naomi misses her friend. Finally, Oscar comes over and the two of them take a walk. They get into an argument, and Naomi storms off. Then her mother helps her work through her emotions. Naomi apologizes, and so does Oscar. The two of them come up with a compromise—they’ll hang out on set days. Naomi, meanwhile, begins to embrace change and even see the merit in these boys.  What makes the characters in this story strong? Reading “Friends,” you get a sense for who Naomi is right away—funny, compassionate, thoughtful, and stubborn. The specific details in Naomi’s dialogue are part of what helps make her such a convincing protagonist.  The story opens on a scene in which Naomi and Oscar are playing a game where they make up stories about people they see on their walk.  Naomi nudged Oscar and pointed discreetly at the woman walking on the other side of the street. “That woman . . . is actually a certified genius. She attends an elite top college that almost nobody knows about, and she’s one of five people there. She’s working on designing an app like FaceTime but you only have to move your lips and the device you’re using will read your lips and what you’re saying will appear as text on the other person’s screen.” Naomi paused for a breath. The author could have easily come up with a simpler game for Naomi and Oscar to play on their walks, like “I spy” or “animal vegetable mineral.” They could have even played a game that didn’t involve talking, like tag. But instead, the game the writer chose is unique—thus it feels a lot more specific, and a lot more memorable.  The choice of game also gives us a window into the characters right away. We gather that Naomi and Oscar are very creative and imaginative. From the ellipsis ( . . . ) at the beginning of the story, we learn that Naomi is good at thinking on her feet—she paused to think, which means she was probably working quickly to make her story up on the spot.  Finally, from the length of Naomi’s story, and the fact that she pauses for breath midway through, we learn that she is talkative. This helps us see the contrast in Naomi’s demeanor when she gets home and talks to her mom: She sighed in relief when she reached her house. “How was your walk?” her mother asked, wiping perspiration from her forehead. She had been cleaning out the attic for a garage sale, which was a taxing task. “Mmm,” Naomi mumbled, not wanting to talk about it. She shuffled up the stairs and into her room. We get the sense that Naomi’s mother was expecting a different kind of answer here—and having heard Naomi’s quick, effusive dialogue earlier on, we can tell that she’s not usually so quiet. The detail about Naomi’s mother preparing for a garage sale and wiping sweat off of her brow also gives us an immediate window into a new character and setting.  Discussion questions: In the story, Naomi considers Oscar to be “set in his ways.” When he stops taking walks with her, Naomi feels more able to forge new habits. But in parts of the story, it seems like maybe Naomi is the one who has trouble with change—after all, she is the one who is thrown off by her friend’s new routine. What are moments in the story where people make assumptions about one another? Are there moments in the story where one person criticizes another person for traits that they themselves might have?  Is Naomi a reliable protagonist? That is, do we believe everything she is telling us? Friends Naomi Keith’s feet slapped the cracked pavement of the sidewalk. She scoured the streets of Cedar Key, their small Florida town, looking for any interesting people. Her best friend, Oscar Hernandez, walked next to her. Suddenly, she spotted a middle-aged woman wearing wrinkled khaki long pants, even in ninety-degree June weather, and a puffy black jacket. She had a baseball cap pulled low and her phone was shoved near her face. She looked rather cross. A perfect suspect. Naomi nudged Oscar and pointed discreetly at the woman walking on the other side of the street. “That woman . . . is actually a certified genius. She attends an elite top college that almost nobody knows about, and she’s one of five people there. She’s working on designing an app like FaceTime but you only have to move your lips and the device you’re using will read your lips and what you’re saying will appear as text on the other person’s screen.” Naomi paused for a breath. “She looks mad because the app isn’t working right. Also, she has been working day and night on it and hasn’t been able to get much sleep. She hasn’t been able to change clothes, so that’s why her pants are wrinkled. Her face is close to the screen because . .

“Twenty Questions, Twenty Answers” is a short story told in the first-person point of view, from Jenny’s perspective, about two teenage sisters, Jenny and Ula, who are stuck in a car together with their parents. On their dad’s suggestion, the sisters decide to play Twenty Questions to pass the time. Ula chooses the object first, and as Jenny questions her sister, she is led down an associative path back into her memories from their childhood. As they near their destination, Jenny is sure she has finally lit upon the mysterious “mineral” object (not an animal, not a vegetable): the stone Ula put on a sparrow’s grave. Although Ula denies it just as they arrive, Jenny is positive she is right. What makes the characters in this story strong? Anna Shepherd does an excellent job of developing her characters, especially the dynamic between the two sisters, through telling dialogue and action. Let’s take a look at the opening sequence to see how she does this. Only ten minutes had gone by since the last rest stop, but to me it felt like an hour. My knee bounced. My leg jiggled. My fingers drummed out syncopated rhythms on the door handle. Through her endless fidgeting and her perception of time (“it felt like an hour”), we immediately see that Jenny is restless and fidgety—not just bored and restless, but likely one of these people who is unable to sit still.  “Jennifer,” said my older sister, Ula. “Stop tapping.” I gritted my teeth and began slapping the side of my thigh instead. “It’s Jenny.” “Jennifer, you’re still making noise.” “My name is Jenny!” As the two sisters begin to interact, we see the tension between them. Jenny’s restlessness is aggravating Ula, who asks her to stop tapping, and so, to get her revenge, Ula appears to purposefully call her “Jennifer,” knowing it will aggravate her sister back. The italics on the name “Jennifer” indicate that Ula is pointedly using her full name.  “Ula, Jenny, stop bickering,” said Mom in that stiff, controlled voice that meant she was trying very, very hard not to yell. “Especially you, Ula. You’re 15. You should know better.” Dad turned around in the passenger seat. “Girls, you’re stressing her out. Why don’t you play Twenty Questions?” Here, we begin not only to get a sense of Mom and Dad but also see, again, through their reactions, that this is likely a typical Jenny-Ula interaction: they bicker and provoke each other, and it exasperates the parents—especially given Ula’s age! This tells us that Ula is not very mature. In this section, I particularly love the characterization of mom’s voice: “that stiff, controlled voice that meant she was trying very, very hard not to yell.” It is so specific, and you know exactly what Shepherd is talking about!  “Yes,” I said instantly. Ula groaned, but I noticed the look of satisfaction in her brown eyes. “I’ll start,” she said in a practiced drawl. “Fine.” Returning to the sisters, we see Jenny’s youth and eagerness to interact with her sister reflected in the way she responds to their dad’s suggestion to play Twenty Questions: “‘Yes,’ I said instantly.” Ula, however, plays the disaffected teenager—groaning and replying in a “practiced draw.” But Jenny notices, from “the look of satisfaction in her brown eyes,” that she’s excited to play.  As the story develops, Shepherd continues to use dialogue and small reactions, like the ones noted above, in a smart way that reveals a lot about each character. The story also becomes more interior, moving between dialogue and Jenny’s internal thought process as she revisits the past, attempting to guess the object Ula has in mind.  Discussion questions Can you identify some other moments where we learn something new about a character through dialogue or reactions? How can Jenny’s guesses in Twenty Questions tell us more about her as a character?  The story ends on a moment of disagreement and uncertainty. Why do you think the writer chose to end the story there? What might this choice tell us about the relationships between the characters? Twenty Questions, Twenty Answers Only ten minutes had gone by since the last rest stop, but to me it felt like an hour. My knee bounced. My leg jiggled. My fingers drummed out syncopated rhythms on the door handle. “Jennifer,” said my older sister, Ula. “Stop tapping.” I gritted my teeth and began slapping the side of my thigh instead. “It’s Jenny.” “Jennifer, you’re still making noise.” “My name is Jenny!” “Ula, Jenny, stop bickering,” said Mom in that stiff, controlled voice that meant she was trying very, very hard not to yell. “Especially you, Ula. You’re 15. You should know better.” Dad turned around in the passenger seat. “Girls, you’re stressing her out. Why don’t you play Twenty Questions?” “Yes,” I said instantly. Ula groaned, but I noticed the look of satisfaction in her brown eyes. “I’ll start,” she said in a practiced drawl. “Fine.” The car fell silent while Ula thought of her object. I stared out the window at the wall of leafy green trees parading down the side of the road, bars of Mozart and Seitz and Boccherini running through my head. My own face—straight, thick black hair framing yellow-hazel eyes—looked dispassionately back at me. After a while, I switched to thinking about strange things that could happen as a result of insufficient AI attempts: A self-driving car is driving down a road. A tree falls across the road, and the car drives into it and explodes. However, right before it explodes, the car sends a record of what has happened to all the other self-driving cars. Instead of concluding that you should stop if a tree falls across the road, the cars all conclude that you should not drive near trees. I smiled at the image of cars inexplicably avoiding large swathes of forest. “All right,” Ula announced. “I’m ready.” Finally, I thought, turning from the window. My sister’s eyes were narrowed, as