loss and grief
— A first-person retelling of the Icarus myth captures the exhilaration of flight and terror of falling through breathless, punctuation-sparse prose that mirrors the experience.
— A golden stallion who killed a girl's father returns months later, saves her from a barn fire, and earns the family's forgiveness.
— Two astronauts on a routine mission are redirected to stop a massive meteorite heading for Earth, but fail, crash-landing on the devastated planet to become humanity's new beginning.
— In 1976 apartheid South Africa, a boy secretly joins student uprisings until police arrest his mother, forcing him to send his siblings to safety and flee to join guerrilla fighters.
— A sister recounts the day Arachne challenged Athena to a weaving contest and was transformed into a spider, then encounters her again years later.
— A girl mourns her lost dog Dixon, taken from her family, holding onto hope that he lives somewhere and remembers being loved.
— An 11-year-old processes her parents' divorce through a poem that moves from suppressed tears to overwhelming grief, cataloging each source of pain.
— A girl tries to save her family's ancient oak tree by climbing into its branches, but fails; later finds solace when a cat makes a home in the fallen logs.
— A prose poem explores the color black through a series of sensory images, from crows to horses, culminating in a meditation on loss and racial identity.
— A girl named Adrin strikes a dangerous bargain with Beta, a wolf who killed her father, agreeing to retrieve a magical owl diadem within eight days or forfeit her life.