empathy
— A 13-year-old visits an indigenous village in Ecuador's jungle and confronts the stark contrasts between their sustainable lifestyle and American consumption.
— A privileged teen volunteers at a camp in rural China's Liangshan mountains, where friendships with local Yi children reveal the true meaning of gratitude.
— Two kindergarteners get locked out of their classroom during a bathroom break and must overcome their fears and rivalry to find help together.
— A young visitor to Sobibór death camp touches the train tracks and imagines herself as a child searching for murdered parents.
— A prose poem imagines the inner life of a crab—its loneliness, fear, and anger—questioning whether people remember the being they've hurt after mounting it on a wall.
— A cat's protective fury over its belly transforms into a meditation on violence that no one—not Earth, not people, not even the cat—truly wants.
— A meditation on feeling trapped by others' expectations transforms into a plea for empathy and a vision of freedom through flight and song.
— A girl faces sexist taunts when joining the Boys' Chess Club but wins over her teammates by reframing their shared experiences of exclusion and leading them to victory.
— A girl grows from child to grandmother, repeatedly passing an old woman who rakes leaves through the seasons, only recognizing her absence when it's too late.
— Two boys explain why frogs croak in rain: when clouds made god cry, the clouds turned gray and frogs began croaking 'it's okay' to comfort.