US Common Core ELA
— A girl journeys through fields and past a mill to a windowsill where, with pencil and paper, she begins to write as if the page were a ballroom.
— A fashion-conscious ten-year-old chooses a fancy dress for a family gathering, then watches from the sidelines until she decides playing with cousins matters more than looking perfect.
— A bullied boy runs away into the Canadian wilderness, survives alone for days, and discovers his supposedly dead father has been living in the forest after being kidnapped years ago.
— An English girl grieving her father's death moves to Germany and creates a magical world in the apartment building's garden, finding friendship through imagination.
— A girl watches classmates bully an autistic student on the bus until a fifth-grader intervenes, transforming the entire bus culture with one act of courage.
— A speaker deliberately ignores the decay around them—dirty dishes, holes in walls, a broken fishbowl—because noticing would make it feel less like home.
— A boy learns his parents are divorcing, finds solace in his golden retriever Lucky, and escapes into baseball—both through books and a Giants game.
— Two sisters saying goodbye to their favorite cloud-watching spot before moving discover a bird-shaped cloud at their new home by the ocean.
— A newly adopted Japanese girl struggles to adjust to her American home until her museum-worker father brings her a tiny tea cup from a Japanese Friendship Doll exhibit.
— Peace arrives like moonlight through a window, then expands into visions of mountain streams, glass-still pools, and fields where doves coo sweetly.