ACARA Years 3-6

Story·Georgia Melnick, age 12 — Ten-year-old Tallulah struggles with leaving her small yellow house until she learns her aunt is moving into their old home, making the new place feel familiar.

Personal Narrative·Lily Shi, age 11 — At a national dance competition, a girl remembers her grandmother's sacrificed dream and her team's journey from regional defeat to championship victory.

Story·Sienna Rapaport, age 10 — A girl with a vast imagination discovers her father is the legendary Bird of Steel and must steal his power to save Riverhaven from eternal conflict between humans and magical...

Personal Narrative·Elena Baltz, age 10 — A 10-year-old recounts the day she had to put down Cody, her elderly pet rat, six months after losing his brother Spencer.

Story·Yutia Li, age 10 — When humans sleep, kitchen objects come alive for nightly revelry — dancing in washcloth dresses, gossiping, playing ping-pong, and sneaking cookie crumbs before dawn signals their return to stillness.

Poetry·Graecie Gwyn, age 9 — Rain transforms a landscape as shadows move, sun breaks through, wind flows, and trees lean toward water in a meditation on nature's interconnected movements.

Story·Ever Sun, age 10 — A city girl discovers a magical forest where animals talk and time moves differently, spending what she thinks is a year but is actually ten years researching nature.

Poetry·Gabe Horowitz, age 10 — A swan gliding across a lake becomes a meditation on how serenity can expand from a single creature to transform an entire landscape.

Personal Narrative·Lydia Taylor, age 13 — A family camping trip to Yellowstone becomes a magical adventure as siblings explore forests, witness the Grand Prismatic Spring, and create their own riverside kingdom.

Story·Rose Amer, age 10 — A girl who hates her ugliness wishes on a star to bring her stone gargoyle to life, then learns through painful transformations that she was already beautiful.