US Common Core ELA

Story·Jubilee Sung — A bored 12-year-old builds a time machine from trash, travels to ancient Alexandria with her talking cat, and must convince Julius Caesar not to burn the library to save human...

Story·Evangeline Gustavson — A woman nurtures a mysterious seedling that grows into an extraordinary plant, dies, and leaves offspring; after her death, she reunites with the plant's true spirit—a boy.

Poetry·Jaslene Kwack — A granddaughter observes how her grandmother's blue cotton dress absorbs daily scents and reflects the Korean proverb that clothes reveal character.

Story·Alice Pak — As conflict between Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces approaches their border town, two childhood friends witness the gradual erosion of their peaceful world through power outages, distant explosions, and rising...

Poetry·Arabella Aab — Dawn in winter Asheville: a solitary observer watches snow fall, trees dance in wind, and contemplates ancestors' fear before the household wakes.

Story·Maddie Rubenstein — A boy who sees himself as an elephant struggles with how others perceive his differences, finding solace in a sandbox where he imagines letting worries fall away like sand.

Story·Ashwin Cohen — A retired cop visiting the Louvre discovers the Mona Lisa has been replaced with a forgery and must identify the thief among five suspects using clues and fingerprints.

Poetry·Mara Occhuizzo — Morning light and wind become a meditation on listening to silence — mountains, birds, voices, and things unheard speak through a bedroom window.

Personal Narrative·Aisana Zhumabayeva — After their father fails to pick them up from school, two siblings wait in an empty cafeteria until an ambulance arrives to take them to the hospital where they learn...

Poetry·Oola Breen-Ryan — A meditation on poetry's elusive nature through metaphors of spiderwebs in sunlight, chaos on paper, and the universe writing, ending with deliberate uncertainty.