nature

Poetry·Grace Jiang, age 11 — A seed becomes a rose that grows tall as a dog, then withers each winter and returns, cycling through seasons year after year.

Story·Ziqing (Izzie) Peng, age 10 — A child describes their city's beauty through the day, then reveals how its bright lights confuse baby sea turtles, causing them to crawl away from the ocean.

Poetry·Anya Geist, age 12 — A nocturnal tour through a French vacation house moves from cicadas outside to bedrooms within, mapping the geography of temporary belonging through precise architectural detail.

Story·Dennis Losett, age 11 — A family hiking near Sorrento encounters a brown dog they name Figadindi after local cactus pears, who accompanies them through changing landscapes before disappearing as quietly as he appeared.

Poetry·Vidhat Kartik, age 9 — A young poet cycles through the seasons with rhyming couplets, capturing each season's distinctive markers from falling leaves to fireworks to hibernating bears.

Poetry·Mae Gesser, age 9 — A quiet poem captures night through four precise images: stars as sequins, moon on water, grass swaying like a rocking horse, silence like an empty page.

Story·Clare McDermott, age 12 — A forest walk becomes a moment of wonder when a hummingbird appears, transforming the atmosphere with its iridescent presence before vanishing.

Story·Adam Smith, age 10 — A boy describes an idyllic natural scene with waterfall, river, and wildlife, finding pure happiness in nature's beauty before returning home to dream of it.

Story·Mira Johnson, age 8 — A sycamore tree named Triffle shelters a wounded bunny from a hunting dog, using her special soap to heal the bunny's injury.

Poetry·Eleonore Lecue, age 6 — A six-year-old's expansive meditation on silence as it moves through mountains, trees, and rainbows, shifting into reflections on growth and mortality.