Fiction
I have always been an early bird. I love to wake around 5:45 AM every morning, even on weekends. Mom says my early-birdness comes from Nanna Mary, but I'm not sure about that. I felt so alive this morning, energy climbed and slipped all throughout me, like a bird waiting to be let out of [...]
Fiction
Andrea pressed her nose against the frosted windowpane to get a better look outside. Not a drop of snow fell from the gray, overcast sky on this gloomy Christmas afternoon. Fidgety with anticipation, she wriggled in her seat. She could hear the adults in the parlor, talking and laughing away. She got up to go [...]
Fiction
My earliest memory is of being trapped in a box. It was a large cardboard shoebox with a few holes punched into the side for air. Light glowed through the holes, but I couldn't see through them; I could only feel myself sliding from side to side as the box was tossed around. I didn't [...]
Fiction
I love storms. Especially electrical storms. The only downside is that I can't use the computer. I still love storms. This was a big one. I watched the lightning reach down with long, slim fingers. I counted the seconds until the thunder came. It was still far away. I was sitting on the back of [...]
Fiction
Dust twirled up into the sky as the mother cheetah chased after the young gazelle. Like all cheetahs, she had a flexible spine, enabling her to cover the ground quickly by taking huge strides. Using her speed as a weapon she took a leap and brought the young animal down, then, taking it by the [...]
Fiction
The Ultimate Challenge: To Come Home Alive
Peter Bradbury stepped outside into the ten-degrees-below-zero Canadian air. The winter would get much colder. The bundled-up, seventeen-year-old boy was not cold. He had grown up in this weather. He was tall, lean, dirty, unshaven, strong, and tough. He had been born in the woods. With much difficulty, he trudged through the three-foot-deep snow over [...]
Fiction
When I look back now, eighteen months later, at our horrendous car crash, it seems so far away, so surreal. But the harsh reminders are suddenly there. My older brother's scars, jagged lines across his muscled chest and stomach, and also running down his spine. Still my hero, so brave in his suffering, never a [...]
Fiction
I am writing this story to tell you about a little orphan boy. His name was Jack and he was my foster brother for two years. When Jack first came to live at our house, he was small. He carried his belongings in a laundry basket and wore jeans with holes in them. He had [...]
Poems
You were loved, sweet, Always smiling When I needed you, You left. You gave me the name orphan, You gave me a black shadow, Life without you has no sense. Now, in your best years, Black soil covers you. O my Daddy On your grave There are roses It's me who put them there Your [...]
Book Reviews
Our Only May Amelia by Jennifer Holm; HarperCollins Books: New York, 1999; $15.95 Close your eyes and imagine that you're the only girl on the Nasel River in the state of Washington, you have seven brothers to deal with, you have a very mean grandmother, and on top of everything, your birthday wish which seems [...]
