Kindergarten
Avaline is afraid to start kindergarten It was May 2016. I had just turned five. My mom and I were sitting at our large glass table in our New York apartment drinking matcha tea. “Kindergarten...
Memoirs
Personal narratives and life experiences
View:
Avaline is afraid to start kindergarten
It was May 2016. I had just turned five. My mom and I were sitting at our large glass table in our New York apartment drinking matcha tea.
“Kindergarten will be a change of scenery for you, and you’ll meet a lot of friends,” my mom said.
“Kindergarten?” I raised my eyebrows.
Kindergarten sounded to me like something cold and lonely.
After a powerful storm, the narrator’s relationship with the ocean is forever changed.
Our house in Florida was situated right next to the ocean. There was a big deck, and I liked to stand on it and watch the waves, and whenever I went outside, the salty wind made my hair stick together. At a corner of the deck was a long flight of stairs that led directly to the shore.
This piece contains some additional resources for educators. Click here to read them.
Alone at her family’s Country House, once a gathering place for “The Cousins,” the narrator reflects on summers past
I am nestled on the window seat, cocooned by the voluminous cream-colored curtains, when I look up from my book, Jennifer Nielson’s The False Prince.
Ella reflects on the lessons she learned over the past school year
While I was riding home during a car ride on the last day of school, I gave myself a question: “Do I think this school year was worth it for all the time that passed?” I thought that I should be able to have an answer, so I recalled every single moment that I experienced during the school year.
The narrator recalls a memorable trip to Australia’s Sunshine Coast
People call the Gold Coast Australia’s Miami. They sing the praises of how it attracts swarms of tourists to a world where skyscrapers pierce a sky speckled with stars and nightclubs pulse with frenetic music, of bikini-clad meter maids and gleaming pools, of glitter and shimmering allure.
Cousins Jane and Louise turn a boring morning watching their brothers play soccer into a fun, meaningful adventure
I leaned against the window, the cold glass sending a shiver through my body. I didn’t want to go to the game. I’m just going to be cold and bored, I thought.
“C’mon, Louise. It can’t be that bad,” my brother said, nudging me. He was dressed head to toe in uniform.
Before moving to New York, the narrator recalls some of her favorite moments and places in Bellevue
“GABBY!! Hurry up! We’re going to be late.” My sister’s voice echoed from the bottom of the stairwell. I slowly got up, deciding if I should move even slower to annoy her.
My family was moving because my dad got a new job in the big city, and it felt like billions of miles away.
The narrator wonders what to do when a competitor lies about the outcome of a race
What if a lobster and a crab bumped into each other? Who do you think would win? This is the usual start of a popular Who Would Win book series. Do you believe that in real life conflicts like this could happen?
Viewing her great-grandpa’s coin collection, the narrator realizes the power of keepsakes
I looked up at my great-grandpa’s picture. “Dad,” I asked, “what coins did my great-grandpa have?”
A little while back, my dad told me a story about my great-grandpa Toby. My dad said that he used to collect golden mint coins.
“I’ll show you,” my dad replied.
The narrator recalls quiet mornings reading with their sister
When I was four years old, I moved to America with my mom and older sister and brother. I remember the first year being very strange and different from our life back in China. We didn’t have a car, so we had to walk everywhere we went, and coming from a walkable town, we were unaccustomed to everything being so far apart in the sub...