US Common Core ELA

Story·Julia Li, age 12 — A girl feels like an alien at school, invisible until classmates realize her father is rich, then suddenly everyone wants to help her.

Poetry·Olivia Cadham, age 11 — A young person explores their fluid identity through the lens of being a girl, boy, or dragon on different days, ultimately choosing to be themselves.

Story·Dennis Losett, age 11 — A family hiking near Sorrento encounters a brown dog they name Figadindi after local cactus pears, who accompanies them through changing landscapes before disappearing as quietly as he appeared.

Poetry·Vidhat Kartik, age 9 — A young poet cycles through the seasons with rhyming couplets, capturing each season's distinctive markers from falling leaves to fireworks to hibernating bears.

Story·Harper Miller, age 11 — During a Texas drought, 11-year-old Ayita discovers her community's water crisis and organizes a grassroots effort to save dying plants while navigating life with her distant father.

Story·Clare McDermott, age 12 — A forest walk becomes a moment of wonder when a hummingbird appears, transforming the atmosphere with its iridescent presence before vanishing.

Story·Eva Juette, age 11 — In Nazi-occupied Denmark, two girls hide their Jewish friend and her mother in a closet during a terrifying search, transforming a childhood game into survival.

Poetry·Mae Gesser, age 9 — A quiet poem captures night through four precise images: stars as sequins, moon on water, grass swaying like a rocking horse, silence like an empty page.

Story·Mira Johnson, age 8 — A sycamore tree named Triffle shelters a wounded bunny from a hunting dog, using her special soap to heal the bunny's injury.

Story·Adam Smith, age 10 — A boy describes an idyllic natural scene with waterfall, river, and wildlife, finding pure happiness in nature's beauty before returning home to dream of it.