Story catalogue
Every story has a purpose: habits, emotions, courage. Your child becomes the hero.
ages 7–9CourageThe Archive of Unfinished Wonders
In an archive where stories finish themselves, three endings go missing. Alice picks the first replacement too fast — and the real work turns out to be owning that.
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ages 7–9FriendshipThe Agreement of the Floating Islands
Two floating islands need the same wind bridge at the same hour, and both are right. Alice has to build a schedule both sides will sign, instead of naming a winner.
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ages 7–9CourageThe Dream Keepers' Academy
At the Dream Keepers' Academy Alice is ready for a first solo crossing, but a younger apprentice, Nil, freezes with fear at the threshold. To give Nil courage, Alice gives up that crossing — and walks through her own fear of the dream's dark.
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ages 7–9FriendshipThe Secret of the Mechanical Dragons
In a city of workshops a team of friends spent a year building a great mechanical dragon. When the launch is moved earlier, Alice tries to do everything alone — and learns that what lifts a dragon is not one person but shared roles and trust.
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ages 7–9EmotionsThe Labyrinth of Musical Doors
The labyrinth charter says pick one door of each pair — hushed or loud — but Alice's melody starts as a whisper and ends as thunder. Alice stubbornly refuses to sacrifice half, invents a third way — taking turns in the melody's own rhythm — and wins the right to be heard.
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ages 7–9EmotionsThe Carnival of Lost Shadows
At the shadow carnival the shadows suddenly tangle, and Vesta blames Alice in front of everyone. Blushing to burning cheeks, Alice finds the cause in her own lantern — and instead of keeping quiet, admits the mistake before the whole square. The mistake becomes the best act of the carnival, and the quarrel ends in shared laughter.
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ages 7–9CourageThe Choice of the Melting Glacier
The ice bridge across the melting glacier is an hour's walk; the stone ridge around takes until sunset. While the dripwater counts the time, Alice chooses the worse of the two paths and explains aloud why: the bridge weakens with every crossing, and the risk would not be her own.
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ages 7–9FriendshipThe Train of Seven Horizons
Three days and seven horizons of travel — and in Alice's jar a firefly is fading, the one she promised to bring home alive to a little sister. When Spark breaks free, Alice chases her through the whole train and across the carriage roofs, giving up every small thing to reach the seventh horizon in time.
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ages 7–9CuriosityThe Voice of the Dinosaur Valley
Herds of callers have closed the only pass home, and the one thing that can lead a person through them is a call the silent Tair refuses to teach. While Alice fumes at the master she thinks useless, time runs out — and the learning will have to be done by watching the very man dismissed as a nuisance.
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ages 7–9HabitsThe Orbital Greenhouse
A watering main burst in the night, leaving the orbital greenhouse with two thirds of a cycle's supply. Little Lu asks for a double ration for the one seedling he brought from home, and Alice has to refuse — because behind the rounds ledger stand twelve more trays and the people living off them.
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ages 7–9FriendshipThe Waiting Tide of Mantas
The mantas enter the lagoon once a year and only onto still water: one splash and the shoal is gone until the next tide. Everything comes easily to Tao and nothing to Alice, and envy is easier than waiting — but friendship here is tested by sitting still without moving a hand.
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ages 7–9HumourThe Garden That Planted Itself
All summer Alice grows a perfect garden alone, by the ruler — not one weed, not one crooked path, not one guest. Until a hedgehog tumbles into the greenhouse and starts digging, dragging and wrecking the beds; and the less perfect the garden becomes, the more people come running to play in it.
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ages 10–12CourageThe Final Whistle
The yard won the tournament on the last goal, and only two people saw the ball cross the line before the strike. The captain says keep quiet — the team worked a whole year for this. Alice knows she will tell the truth, and knows the price: her place among the people she grew up with.
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ages 10–12EmotionsChalk
Alice prepared for a week and knows the topic cold, but it is the boy at the next desk who gets called up — and he slips on the third line. One word would bring deserved rightness in front of everyone. But Lyosha reaches for the cloth, and Alice lowers the hand.
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ages 10–12CuriosityFirst Place by the Rules
Alice won the city olympiad — and an hour later learned that the rival had been disqualified over a slip in the answer sheet, though he solved every problem. The coach says the win was fair and will not change his mind. The certificate goes face down into a drawer.
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ages 10–12CourageThe One You Don't Pity
Kir has been bullied for a week, and Alice says nothing — because Kir really is unpleasant, and defending him would cost too much. When she finally says "enough", there will be no thanks today or in a year: nobody stands up alongside, and the desk empties on both sides.
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ages 10–12FriendshipThe Silence in the Office
The envelope with the trip money vanished from the classroom, and Alice was the last one there. There is a real explanation — but it belongs to someone else, and she promised to keep it. The adults want an answer today, and the price of silence is known in advance.
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ages 10–12FriendshipOne Seat in the Double
There is one seat in the double for the camp regatta and two friends: Kos has two seasons of shared rowing behind him, Marta has a current calculation and a channel that cuts a quarter off. The draw is in the morning and will not wait, so Alice says it to both faces.
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ages 10–12FriendshipThe Second Panel
A loaded barge is aground right by the lock and must be off before the water rises. The winches are paired, the panels stand on opposite banks, and only Rem can hold the second one — the boy Alice has counted a rival for two years. Asking him means admitting you cannot manage alone.
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ages 10–12HabitsA Year Later
A year ago Alice broke the workshop display case on a dare, and it was Toshka who was pulled from the city show — he was simply nearest. The glass was replaced long ago, Toshka has grown up and never mentions it, and there is nobody left to remind. That is exactly what makes saying it now so hard.
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ages 10–12HabitsTwo Hundred Days
Alice started the boat in January and promised out loud to finish it by autumn. By day one hundred the interest is gone, nobody is checking, and skipping an evening is the easiest thing in the world. Two hundred evenings stand between the promise and the water.
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ages 10–12CuriosityI Cannot Manage
Alice volunteered to build the school play's set alone and said in front of everyone that no help was needed. Three days before the premiere the three-tier frame leans under any push, and four people are due to stand on the top of it.
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ages 10–12EmotionsA Way Out for the Loser
At the inter-station trials Gai's drill fails, and the log is kept by Alice — the one he has been arguing with all winter. One line suspends his station for a year. Another, just as true, gives him a re-run the same day.
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ages 10–12EmotionsThin Ice
The bay froze a week ago, and straight across to the Spit is twenty minutes instead of an hour round the shore. Halfway over, the ice turns from white to grey, and Alice sees it first. The others are two hundred metres from land and have no intention of stopping.
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ages 4–6CourageThe Ball Under the Kiosk
The ball rolled under the kiosk, and only the seller can get it out — a big man nobody knows. The others are waiting to play, and the window is ten steps away. Alice reaches the counter and says nothing. And then goes a second time.
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ages 4–6EmotionsThe Cuckoo's Little Door
The little door on Grandma's clock came off and stayed in Alice's hand. The cuckoo cannot come out now. Saying it is scary — what if there is telling off. And the clock is about to strike.
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ages 4–6CourageThe Dark Cupboard
Sonya's toy hare fell behind the cupboard door, and without him she will not sleep. Inside it is black and something rustles. Sonya wants to go herself — but Alice will go first, because she is older.
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ages 4–6HabitsSomeone Else's Scooter
A scooter someone left stands by the bench, and Grisha from upstairs is three years older and calling Alice into his gang. "Let's run it into the puddle, it will be funny." Saying no means being left alone in the yard.
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ages 4–6FriendshipThe Red Spade
Alice has a new red spade — today's, nobody else's, all theirs. And then three-year-old Gosha turns up at the sandpit, knocks the tower down without a word and reaches for the spade. Handing it over is the last thing Alice wants.
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ages 4–6CuriosityThe Chrysalis on the Branch
A grey chrysalis hangs on a lilac branch, and Grandma says there is a butterfly inside. It does not move for an hour, then it cracks — and it looks stuck. Helping with one finger would be so easy.
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ages 4–6HumourThe Hill All the Way to the Fence
Alice is building the biggest snow hill in the yard — one you can ride all the way to the fence. But it needs more snow than one bucket can carry before evening, and so far the hill is only knee high.
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ages 4–6HumourOne Swing Between Two
There is one swing in the yard, and Alice and Petka reached it in the same second. The counting rhyme does not settle it, rock paper scissors draws five times running, and the swing hangs empty while the two of them hold the ropes.
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ages 4–6EmotionsThe Firefly in the Jar
A firefly lands on Alice's palm and flies into the jar by itself. At home the room is never dark with it. But in the wood the fireflies blink all at once — and only the one in the jar blinks off the beat.
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ages 4–6HabitsThe Key on the Path
A small brass key shines on a park path — a winding key from some toy. Nobody saw Alice pick it up. And on a bench nearby a boy is crying over a car that will not go.
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ages 4–6CuriosityThe Kite That Would Not Fly
On Windy Hill the wind moves in herds, and Alice's kite drops sideways, then down, then sideways again. Nearby sits a jackdaw called Ugolyok — he says nothing at all and simply sits where the wind runs even.
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ages 4–6FriendshipThe One by the Wall
The same kids play tag in the yard every day. And by the wall, for the third day, stands a new boy — quiet, just watching. Calling him over means leaving the game halfway through.
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