death

Story·Xian Chiang-Waren — After a baby's drowning death, thirteen-year-old Eve and her sister are sent from their Massachusetts island home to the mainland while their mother recovers from grief.

Story·Will Stroud, age 13 — A wolf named Buck leads his pack in a three-day hunt through the Alaskan wilderness, finally cornering and killing a formidable old moose.

Story·Cassie Lear, age 12 — After her brother is executed for harming a sacred cat, a young Egyptian princess must decide whether to rule, marry, or abandon the throne when her father dies.

Story·Hannah Berman — Buck the wolf leads his pack on a three-day hunt through Alaskan wilderness, tracking and ultimately killing a formidable old moose in a violent confrontation.

Story·Travis Royce, age 13 — While watering tomato plants, a boy watches water flood an ant colony and desperately tries to save drowning ants, reflecting on empathy and the value of small lives.

Story·Max Strebel, age 13 — Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in fog, a driver glimpses a man who triggers a buried memory of his brother's fatal fall during the bridge's construction.

Story·Natalie Wittenbrook, age 11 — A twelve-year-old girl whose father hunts wolves for pelts rescues an orphaned wolf pup and, with help from the Animal Society, eventually convinces her father to stop commercial hunting.

Poetry·Ben Amoss, age 10 — A snake's morning routine along the Mississippi River ends abruptly with an encounter with a wheel, told through sensory details and simple movements.

Story·Will Ilgen — A Union soldier at Gettysburg confronts the death of his best friend while wrestling with memories of his father and the meaning of war as 'a game of chess.'

Story·Jessica Blanton, age 12 — A girl finds her late mother's locket in her backpack, triggering memories of her fourth birthday party and the day her mother died in a car accident.