freedom

Story·Chappell Sargent, age 10 — A frustrated girl takes a bareback ride on her old horse when a crimson butterfly spooks the mare, throwing the rider and revealing unexpected beauty.

Story·Julia Echternach, age 11 — A girl roller-skating to a reservoir meets Ally, who teaches her to catch frogs and watch for foxes while sharing a philosophy of doing whatever feels right.

Story·Allie Aguila, age 11 — A girl with amnesia wakes on a beach, joins a group of free children, and learns to fly by believing in herself—until she wakes from the dream.

Poetry·Isabel Taylor, age 13 — A young writer expresses the desire to dissolve boundaries between self and nature, imagining feet sinking into dirt, floating as water, swaying in trees.

Story·Libby Nelson, age 13 — A Japanese-American teenager recounts her family's forced internment during WWII, from receiving the summons through years at Manzanar to liberation that brings no true freedom.

Poetry·Emma Rose Kirby — A child watches sunset from the beach, sees dolphins, rides waves on a boogie board, and promises to return tomorrow to the ocean shore.

Poetry·William Ilgen, age 9 — A boy watches sunset from the ocean shore, sees dolphins leaping, rides waves on a boogie board, and promises to return tomorrow.

Story·Justine Koo Drennan, age 12 — A Chinese mother faces an impossible choice when officials demand she give up one of her two children under the one-child law, ultimately deciding to leave China.

Story·Danny Musher, age 13 — A young enslaved man flees through dark woods pursued by slave-catchers, finds what seems to be a safe house on the Underground Railroad, but is captured when the hiding place...

Story·Alexandra Pistey, age 13 — A Nevada girl becomes obsessed with capturing a wild palomino mustang, but when her father catches the mare for her birthday, she realizes the horse's spirit belongs to the mountains.