seeing beauty in the ordinary

Poetry·Isabelle Zeaske, age 10 — A spring walk reveals birch shadows, a fern sprout, and a plastic bag caught in a pine tree, its snap drowned by a chickadee's song.

Poetry·Isabelle Zeaske, age 10 — A spring walk reveals birch shadows, a fern sprout, and a plastic bag caught in a pine tree, its snap drowned out by a distant chickadee's song.

Poetry·Elina Juvonen, age 13 — A prose poem traces the precise moment when ocean and sky merge at twilight, finding that exact blue-black in the speaker's own eyes.

Story·Elam Fifer-Whiting, age 13 — A boy's subway journey becomes a catalog of encounters — a homeless woman, street performers, a soul-reading stranger — each revealing the city's complex humanity.

Story·Emma Caroline Duncan, age 11 — A mute girl in southern Africa discovers the feared Jago bird that terrorizes her village is protecting its silent chicks, finding her own voice through their connection.

Story·Shyla DeLand, age 12 — A distant father and daughter walk to see Spider-Man; he secretly helps a man afford tickets and saves her from a dog, but she only notices the shirtless hero.

Poetry·Sonja Minge, age 11 — A young camper observes the sensory details of an autumn night outdoors, from the Milky Way to marshmallows roasting to northern lights glowing over the forest.

Poetry·Samantha Ji Ping Wainapel, age 13 — A young writer rediscovers the exhilaration of flight, watching the world shrink below while yearning to experience the sky without the plane's protection.

Story·Isabella Widrow, age 12 — A family drives through rain to hunt chanterelles in the Pacific Northwest woods, finding twenty pounds after initial frustration and cold searching.

Poetry·Hannah Dastgheib, age 11 — A child falls into autumn leaves and experiences a sensory rush of memories, scents, and sounds that blur into a single moment of seasonal joy.