ACARA Years 7-10
— A boy promises his injured grandfather he'll win the 400-meter dash, the same race that ended his grandfather's track career decades earlier.
— A girl arrives home from school to an empty house and contemplates how the world continues moving while she stands still in her quiet kitchen.
— An eight-year-old boy breaks through his grandfather's emotional walls by building a model pirate ship together, transforming their relationship through shared imagination and craftsmanship.
— During the Irish Potato Famine, a girl on a coffin ship to America remembers losing her family to starvation and the promise she couldn't keep to her dying sister.
— After his older brother leaves for college, a boy finds solace in their old fort and rescues a fallen fledgling, seeing his own loss reflected in the abandoned bird.
— A newspaper delivery boy wrestles with his conscience on a brutally cold morning, ultimately choosing duty over comfort after reading about Andrew Carnegie.
— A 10-year-old chronicles his parents' divorce with remarkable emotional intelligence, tracing the journey from loss through fights over custody to unexpected gains including a stepfather and baby brother.
— A granddaughter recalls tea and conversation with her grandmother, then confronts the shock of learning her grandmother had lost her will to live.
— During community service punishment, Bailey watches ducks struggle free from thorns and finds hope for her parents battling her father's cancer.
— A boy saves his friend from an oncoming train after the friend becomes disoriented from a fall, but the rescue happens so fast he can barely process it.