ACARA Years 7-10
— A nine-year-old Jewish boy is smuggled from Warsaw to Switzerland inside a curtain during WWII, separated from his family but eventually finding hope through a letter confirming their safety.
— A Vietnamese girl named Hoa, overwhelmed by her new American school, runs away to the fields where a mystical connection to nature helps her find peace with her new home.
— Bluebells trigger memories of a childhood garden in Roslyn, where the speaker once folded fertilizer beads into soil, calling them 'green pearls' that held perfect potential.
— A thirteen-year-old explores memory and perception through four vignettes: coffee grounds and bird eggs, violin practice, shower wall patterns, and a childhood dream of walking on eggs.
— During Hurricane Sandy's blackout, a family lights their first fire, boils water for foot-soaking, and finds calm while wind rages outside their dark house.
— A meditation on feeling trapped by others' expectations transforms into a plea for empathy and a vision of freedom through flight and song.
— A teenage surfer faces the same deadly waves that killed his father at the Mavericks competition, then risks everything to save his friend from drowning.
— A girl grows from child to grandmother, repeatedly passing an old woman who rakes leaves through the seasons, only recognizing her absence when it's too late.
— A girl recalls being praised as 'a little angel' throughout childhood, while her mother's poetry quotation hints at the impermanence of such perfection.
— Beverly Henderson, orphaned in 1950s Idaho, befriends a raccoon named Bandit who later betrays her, causing an explosion that kills her father and leaves her in a 13-year coma.