Fiction
“Wheeee!" We must have been going fifty, maybe sixty miles per hour in his new Whaler speedboat, and I loved every minute of it. Janet, lying down in the bow to perfect her supermodel tan, gripped onto the handrails at this sudden shift of speed. I laughed next to Jesse, my six-foot-one, fifteen-year-old friend [...]
Fiction
I was seven when I first worked up the courage to get on the back of a horse. Not that it needed too much courage to climb aboard a twenty-year-old pony who was not even five feet tall. It was at one of those pony rides at the county fair, nothing special. Me and the [...]
Fiction
Ruthie Spokes was a lover of golden retrievers. She was captivated by their silky, golden coats, and their sweet, lovable nature. She often begged her parents to get her a golden retriever, and by the time Ruthie was eleven, her parents knew Ruthie would settle for no other dog. She would have never guessed that [...]
Fiction
I'm lying on my back in my grandfather's orchard, staring up at the branches above me. It is one of the last days of summer. Already the days are shorter and the nights are cooler. Some kinds of apples are already ripe. Others will be ready to pick soon. I think of my grandmother's apple [...]
Fiction
In the blink of an eye, one chapter of your life changes into another. Someone that you knew since you were a toddler becomes a stranger. A place that you've memorized by heart becomes unfamiliar. And you, you've changed so much that your childhood best friend wouldn't recognize you if you appeared right before them. [...]
Fiction
There was once a boy who lived in a village in a valley of Japan. His village had wooden houses with sliding doors and rushing water and creeks. One hot summer day, it rained heavily from dawn to dusk. The creeks got deeper and wilder, and the boy, Makoto, thought it was the perfect time [...]
Poems
The fields are a wonder in summertime: Midnight black like the sky, With twinkling lights like stars. What are those lights? Hundreds of fireflies flittering about, Tiny and so nimble. Their lights shine on and off, Making the field like shiny sequins, Like moonshine dancing off the sea. I run out into the field, The [...]
Poems
There are scattered wildflowers wilting among the coarse grass. Solitary deer graze on prickly stems. Birds gossip in the branches of dead oak trees. Sunlight casts a dappled shadow onto the hard dirt. And the wind whispers secrets to me over the bent corn.
Poems
At first glance, only shadows Only wisps of black knitted into The patchwork quilt of springy turf Where magic warms the notes of moon's music, Light playing upon scruffy T-shirt and shorts, Hair swirling, legs Twirling, Hoping to gather treasure in her net Then out of dark and fresh-lain night: A tiny little bead of [...]
Poems
Lines... Veins... Silky Strands... One red leaf on a green tree, Swaying all alone in the wind One red leaf falling through the chilled fall air Swirling in the twilight. A busy spider in the early hours of dawn, Silk webbing falling behind, Swirling strand, into lines, into web of silk. Twilight One red leaf [...]
Book Reviews
Powder Monkey, by Paul Dowswell; Bloomsbury USA Children's Books: New York, 2005; $16.95 Imagine the fear of being blown to pieces at any minute! Thirteen-year-old Samuel Witchall constantly faced this horror in the action-packed historical adventure, Powder Monkey. Being blown up was just one danger Sam had to endure aboard a Navy fighting ship in [...]
Book Reviews
Voices of War edited by Tom Wiener; National Geographic: Washington D.C., 2oo4; $3o Don’t get scared away by the title or how many pages in this book. It is really the Voices of Heroes. Veterans who served in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf talk about what happened to [...]
