authentic voice

Story·Sonja ten Grotenhuis, age 10 — A girl who can't ride a bike faces humiliation at bike camp until she meets Rosie, another struggling rider who offers genuine friendship.

Poetry·Celeste Escobar, age 9 — A child celebrates physical connection with the earth through barefoot play, describing the planet as a mother whose sandy skin invites daily touch and joy.

Poetry·Neel Rangan, age 9 — A young poet imagines a distant land where theatrical beings act out our dreams, created by God so humans could experience wonder during sleep.

Story·Samantha Abrishani, age 12 — A girl discovers mysterious footprints leading into the ocean, searches for her missing brother, and befriends the reclusive neighbor who reveals she once cared for a dolphin-boy.

Story·Bailey Curtin, age 11 — A girl walks a PEI beach at dawn carrying her sister's stolen ashes, confronting grief until a mysterious dove appears and draws their family's secret symbol in the sand.

Story·Bailey Curtin, age 11 — After her sister Jade dies from a brain tumor, Cate steals some ashes and walks to a PEI beach where a mysterious dove appears and draws their family's safety symbol...

Story·Sadie Perkins, age 13 — A girl visits her dying grandmother in a nursing home, struggles with grief after her death, then feels her grandmother's presence return to comfort her.

Story·Melina Ahmad, age 11 — Two six-year-old best friends spend a perfect day together at a street fair, unaware that boxes in one girl's apartment signal an impending move to California.

Poetry·Rafi Mohammed, age 10 — A lost red balloon travels the world searching for the child who let go, eventually finding freedom in Antarctica among millions of other balloons.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 9 — A father and daughter venture into the woods to craft a bow and arrows, transforming branches into instruments that sing and shoot arrows toward stars that scamper like foxes.