ACARA Years 3-6

Poetry·Celie Kreilkamp, age 12 — Rain transforms a city into a sanctuary, wrapping it in gray blankets of mist while thunder and lightning create a world apart from complications.

Story·Hannah Ferreira, age 11 — A girl escapes her stifling bedroom on a summer night to lie in the grass under moonlight, until her mother gently brings her back inside.

Poetry·Celie Kreilkamp, age 12 — Rain transforms a small city into a sanctuary, wrapping it in gray blankets of mist while revealing simple beauties in puddles and lightning.

Story·Meg Pheifer, age 11 — A Mexican-American girl's nursing school dreams seem crushed by poverty until her cantankerous neighbor unexpectedly offers to pay her college tuition.

Story·Meg Simpson, age 10 — A twelve-year-old faces peer pressure when her best friend Lauren shoplifts and tries to involve her, leading to difficult choices about friendship and integrity.

Story·Annie Strother, age 12 — A five-year-old girl sits by a lake at sunset, contemplating why everything in life requires waiting, until her father helps her understand its purpose.

Story·Arielle Gorin, age 12 — A young artist who draws the sunrise every morning struggles with her mother's acting ambitions for her, then finds hope after losing an art contest when her grandmother offers to...

Story·Sarah Heng Blackburn, age 11 — Eight-year-old Soon-Soon Wang flees Cultural Revolution China for America after her parents are taken by the government, leaving behind her best friend Xiao-Long.

Story·Jane Westrick, age 12 — A young climber encounters a cougar on a mountain ledge and saves herself by singing the same lullaby she once used to tame her childhood cat.

Story·Rachel Schneck, age 10 — A wild African horse is captured, shipped to America, and passed between owners until she escapes during a film shoot and returns to freedom on the African plains.