the passage of time

Story·Brooke Fallows, age 11 — A girl remembers her grandfather through visits to a train station and Olvera Street, then recounts his death and what he taught her about time and memory.

Poetry·Stella White, age 11 — A girl lies in her father's childhood bed in London, watching trains pass and imagining his life decades earlier in the same room.

Poetry·Sarah Welch, age 11 — A child lies awake in a too-big bed at grandma's house, noticing the dripping faucet and crack of light until sleep finally comes.

Story·Ada King, age 11 — A younger sister accompanies her family to drop her older sister off at college, grappling with change while finding comfort in a shared photograph from their childhood.

Poetry·Sydney Pardo, age 13 — A poem of lost childhood intimacy between cousins or friends, marked by shared memories of orchards, butterfly funerals, and the gulf that opens when one becomes a teenager.

Poetry·Sonia Bhaskaran, age 9 — Two birds chase through the air, forming a brief circular pattern in their acrobatic flight before landing and returning the world to its usual sounds.

CJ

Story·Nell Chidley, age 11 — On Christmas Day, a girl discovers one of her ducks killed by a weasel, then incubates the duck's last egg to hatch a duckling she names CJ.

Story·Jenna Fields, age 12 — An owl hunts through moonlit woods to feed her soon-to-hatch eggs, fights off a raccoon predator, and returns to witness her chicks emerging into the world.

Poetry·Elisabeth Martin, age 13 — A poem traces the cycle of grief from fresh loss through fading memory to sudden, sharp remembrance that brings the pain flooding back.

Story·Emily Knopf, age 13 — A thirteen-year-old girl remembers her brother's journey from playful teenager to soldier while processing the news that he's missing in action in Afghanistan.