UK KS3
— An ambassador without mind or face sits in a walled place, contemplating his non-existence and the walls that might have hope where he has none.
— A girl's excitement about becoming a big sister turns to grief when her mother miscarries, teaching her about loss and the fragility of hope.
— A young writer confronts human hypocrisy and self-righteousness, building to the admission that we're all guilty of the stupidity we see in others.
— A girl waits in a sweltering car while her mother fights with broken gas pumps, her stream-of-consciousness revealing the death of her brother Joel and her parents' bitter divorce.
— On planet Kepler-22b, students compete for honors status while their alien parents work light-years away, until a boy discovers the dark truth behind 'organic' education.
— A foster child who lost her voice after trauma struggles to speak again, remembering the woman who silenced her years ago.
— A young poet compares plastic's permanence to the pyramids, warning that our disposable creations outlast monuments while poisoning the earth we depend on.
— A meditation on impermanence that moves from photographs and fireflies to wedding cake and stone statues, arguing that nothing can truly be preserved.
— A granddaughter traces her family's rise and fall through China's civil war and Cultural Revolution, from her great-grandfather's fruit business to burning ownership papers for survival.
— A girl traces her name in breath-fog on an evening window, observing how light casts her shadow onto the lawn below.