family bonds
— A boy promises his injured grandfather he'll win the 400-meter dash, the same race that ended his grandfather's track career decades earlier.
— A boy who can speak to animals flees with his wolf-dog when a monster called an Alarcon hunts him for his powers, ultimately escaping when a condor saves them from...
— An 11-year-old recalls visiting her mother's cousin Marie on an Irish farm, witnessing her sudden illness, and learning of her death two weeks later on St. Patrick's Day.
— A lonely girl who plays harp privately joins a youth symphony at her mother's urging and meets a potential friend who offers to help her.
— A popular middle schooler rejects her childhood friend at lunch, then finds her grandmother's photo and realizes she's betrayed her values for social status.
— During the Irish Potato Famine, a girl on a coffin ship to America remembers losing her family to starvation and the promise she couldn't keep to her dying sister.
— After his older brother leaves for college, a boy finds solace in their old fort and rescues a fallen fledgling, seeing his own loss reflected in the abandoned bird.
— An eight-year-old boy breaks through his grandfather's emotional walls by building a model pirate ship together, transforming their relationship through shared imagination and craftsmanship.
— A young Egyptian girl yearns to help build Pharaoh Cheops' pyramid while managing household duties and missing her parents, who return unexpectedly at story's end.
— A girl disobeys her grandfather's warning and reads a magic book from his library, causing plants and animals to erupt from its pages until he rescues her.