fear

Poetry·Mira Bernstein Kaufman, age 11 — A child swimming with her father discovers strength in diving under waves instead of fighting them, finding joy in the ocean's power.

Story·Steven Lu, age 12 — A boy watches from his hillside home as flood waters from Deer Mountain devastate his village below, imagining the mountain as an angry deity.

Story·Joshua Mandell, age 10 — Three boys run away to sea after Tom fights with his parents, survive a shipwreck on separate islands, and reunite through ingenuity and courage before being rescued.

Story·Amy Xu, age 11 — An eleven-year-old recounts getting lost in a NYC subway station at age four, then discovers her grandmother remembers the incident differently, questioning memory itself.

Story·Rosalie Stoner, age 11 — During the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, a young girl saves a lost child while fleeing through the chaos of Pompeii's destruction.

Story·Charlie Patten, age 13 — Three friends meet to swim at night but Martin has a premonition dream where a sea creature attacks his friends, waking just as they arrive for real.

Story·Rachel Stanley, age 13 — A young diver conquers her fear of the 10-meter platform, discovering the exhilaration of flight in the moment she lets herself fall.

Story·Parth Ravel, age 12 — A space crew lands on planet AE-51 to establish a colony, only to discover an identical crashed ship with their same ID number and a centuries-old nametag bearing the navigator's...

Story·Ben Mast, age 12 — A peasant girl follows a mysterious blue dragon into its burrow and discovers it's actually an evil magician who killed her family and seeks to end her bloodline.

Story·Christina Suh, age 12 — A privileged Southern girl discovers her family's enslaved girl Susan attempting to escape and, after hearing Susan's story, helps her flee north to freedom.