fear
— A lonely girl exploring a castle during a field trip gets trapped in a closet and meets Jane, a mysterious servant girl who wants to be best friends forever.
— A Purple courier delivering documents in the Forbidden Strip—where Purple and Green people live together—meets Unum, whose greyish-brown skin and perspective challenge everything she's been taught about segregation.
— A young poet captures the Revolutionary War through fragmented images of muskets, roses, and soldiers' faces molded by fear and braveness.
— A man without food or water, beaten and robbed, continues to think only of love—revealed to be the poet's own experience.
— A sentient radio watches helplessly as carnivorous moonflowers take over the island city of Floracion, turning its inhabitants into mindless carriers of the infection.
— A second-grader struggles with reading aloud during class, feeling excluded until a supportive tutor helps her overcome her challenges and gain confidence.
— A Chinese immigrant child's first day of American school transforms from terror to tentative hope when a classmate extends a gentle hand of friendship.
— During California's 2020 wildfires, a girl wakes to an apocalyptic orange sky and wonders when the world will return to normal.
— A girl faces her aunt's terminal illness through the metaphor of a falling bomb while a mourning dove sits motionless on their roof, refusing to move.
— A dialogue poem between two voices moves from invitation to fly, through a refugee's plea for help, to a declaration of collective strength and resistance.