connection to nature
— A young writer expresses the desire to dissolve boundaries between self and nature, imagining feet sinking into dirt, floating as water, swaying in trees.
— A girl struggles with insomnia on a school night, trying various methods to fall asleep until the sounds of nature finally calm her racing mind.
— During an autumn storm, forest creatures—a squirrel, owl, fox, mole, and others—struggle for shelter and food, their lives intersecting in a complex web of survival.
— A twelve-year-old discovers seventy-five letters from 1919-1923 between her great-grandmother and a French pen pal, Cécile, who died at age twenty.
— A daughter and father bond over an Avalanche-Blues playoff game in enemy territory, their first real connection after twelve years of distance.
— A child watches sunset from the beach, sees dolphins, rides waves on a boogie board, and promises to return tomorrow to the ocean shore.
— A boy watches sunset from the ocean shore, sees dolphins leaping, rides waves on a boogie board, and promises to return tomorrow.
— A second-grader leaves school early for a phone call from her father's childhood nurse in Greece, navigating language barriers and discovering her connection to a namesake grandmother.
— Two seventh-graders investigate dead fish at a marsh, uncovering a plot to destroy the wetland for a mall, and catch the criminals in a nighttime stakeout.
— A girl goes cross-country skiing with her grandfather in winter woods, gets separated from him, hears a pack of coyotes, and feels a deep connection to the forest.