US Common Core ELA
— A high-achieving student preparing for a prestigious science program rediscovers her abandoned passion for dance when an application asks what she's passionate about.
— A boy's dream summer with the Yankees is replaced by a Montana ranch visit where he discovers his grandfather's hidden baseball past and they heal old wounds together.
— During a dinner of liver and broccoli, a girl dreams she travels to Depression-era Berlin and wartime Vietnam, witnessing hungry children fighting over scraps.
— A daughter and father bond over an Avalanche-Blues playoff game in enemy territory, their first real connection after twelve years of distance.
— A girl watches her cousin Rebecca cling to hope that her divorced father will return, even after he attempts to kidnap her and robs a bank.
— A boy watches sunset from the ocean shore, sees dolphins leaping, rides waves on a boogie board, and promises to return tomorrow.
— A Manhattan girl spends a reluctant summer on a Kentucky farm, where a barefoot country girl teaches her to climb trees, ride horses, and watch sunrises.
— An 8-year-old processes 9/11 through the contrast between her safe home life, library escapes, and the frightening images on TV, wondering about children in other countries.
— A second-grader leaves school early for a phone call from her father's childhood nurse in Greece, navigating language barriers and discovering her connection to a namesake grandmother.
— Two seventh-graders investigate dead fish at a marsh, uncovering a plot to destroy the wetland for a mall, and catch the criminals in a nighttime stakeout.