What are some not to be missed short stories....

[Michelle in GA]

We are taking a break from novels for a month and are going to read some short stories. My dc are 13 and 14 y/o. What are your favorites for that age?

[LizzyBee]

The Gift of the Magi by O Henry
The Tell Tale Heart by Poe

[Jenny in Atl]

http://www.classicshorts.com/bib.html

Here's just a few... :D

I also really like Faulkner's short stories

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/r_ssi_collections.html

[strider]

O. Henry

Pearl Buck

[ereks mom]

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
The Gift of the Magi and After Twenty Years and The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry
To Build a Fire by Jack London
The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde
How Much Land Does a Man Need? and Where Love is, There God is Also by Leo Tolstoy
The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence
The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte
August Heat by W. F. Harvey
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (from The Jungle Book) by Rudyard Kipling
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
The Open Boat by Stephen Crane
The Tell-Tale Heart and The Masque of the Red Death and several others by Edgar Allen Poe
various stories by Flannery O'Connor (we live near her hometown)

[Sharon in MD]

I'd suggest The Mask of the Red Death by Poe and by Twain, What Stumped the Blu Jays. Both are great. The Mask is a bit macabre:ohmy:...but really good and the jay story is just pure fun.:lol:

[Eliana]

I have a long list of short stories (and essays) I like to use here (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4540).

I would really hesitate to do much, if any, Poe, or even Faulkner, with students your children's ages... and I would avoid stories such as the Lottery also.

...but my children are quite sheltered, and even if they could process those individual stories at that age, the cumulative effect of the darkness of many of the typically studied short stories would really get them down. YMMV :)

Eliana

PS I don't know if all of the links sill work - this list was drawn up several years ago, but I do have doc files with many of them on, including anything listed as 'print out'. If there is anything listed that you would like to look at before deciding to buy or check out a book containing them, I'd be happy to send them to you! [I have them as doc files b/c the books I own often contain stories I don't want my students to encounter... and b/c it is a little more manageable to read than a bulky anthology!]

[Laura in OH]

Harold Bloom's Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages

http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Poems-Extremely-Intelligent-Children/dp/0684868733

I highly recommend this - we have really enjoyed it!

[ereks mom]

ER is 17-almost-18 and a senior in high school, so there are several stories on his list that I would not have a younger child read.

For younger dc, I would eliminate these from the list:

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
To Build a Fire by Jack London
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence
The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte
Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
The Tell-Tale Heart and The Masque of the Red Death and several others by Edgar Allen Poe
various stories by Flannery O'Connor

And I might also eliminate these (although I read the first two as a 7th grader; they were in my lit book):
August Heat by W. F. Harvey
The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

[Kareni]

One fun story is The Lady or the Tiger by Frank Stockton. If they enjoy that, have them read the sequel, The Discourager of Hesitancy. The latter is available online at:

http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/?p=83398933

Regards,
Kareni

[cajun.classical]

We are taking a break from novels for a month and are going to read some short stories. My dc are 13 and 14 y/o. What are your favorites for that age?

You've been given some great suggestions already. Might I add to list PG Wodehouse? His stories are hilarious and as George Grant says, Anyone who wants to learn how to write should read PG Wodehouse. He is a master! I heartily recommend any of the Jeeves stories. All of my dc (3-11) love Wodehouse. Of course, we read it complete with British accent and have a ball.

[JFS in IL]

Esp. any of the chapters of Dandelion Wine (most of which stand alone as short stories.).

[Lori D.]

- Farmer Giles of Ham (Tolkien) -- GREAT fun!
- Smith of Wooten Major (Tolkien)
- The Blue Cross; The Queer Feet (Father Brown mystery) (Chesterton)
- Scandal in Bohemia; The Problem of Thor Bridge (Sherlock Holmes) (Doyle)
- The Monkey's Paw (Jacobs) -- spooky, but not too spooky : )
- The Happy Prince; The Remarkable Rocket (Wilde)
- Feathertop (Hawthorne)
- Reflections (Hearn)
- The Lady or the Tiger (Stockton)
- Rikki Tikki Tavi (Kipling) -- adventure
- The Most Dangerous Game (Connell) -- great irony
- The Ransom of Red Chief (O. Henry) -- very funny
- There Will Come Soft Rains (Bradbury)
- Man Without a Country (Hale)
- Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Crane)

[nestof3]

The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/yellowwallpaper.pdf

THe Gift of the Magi (O Henry)
http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Henry/Gift_Magi.pdf

Young Goodman Brown (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0168.pdf

Bartleby the Scrivener (Herman Melville)
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/Melville/Bartleby-Scrivener.pdf

The Birthmark (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HawBirt.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

[gardenschooler]

My dd13 is crazy for Sherlock Holmes.
She's reading The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (http://books.google.com/books?id=IS5jlMdbu1wC&dq=the+adventures+and+memoirs+of+sherlock+holmes&pg=PP1&ots=KMB243IXc9&sig=GP2LCWs63s9KVnv2KkY4j-a3ae4&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enUS216US216&q=The+Adventures+and+Memoirs+of+Sherlock+Holmes&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPP13,M1) and enjoying every minute of it, even those stories that she's read before.

[Anne/Ankara]

Here is a nice list, called 150 Short Stories...

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=hNDUk9VsU9kC&dq=150+great+short+stories&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=ulqIYjXOKB&sig=8eukpihQ3g_rlIJqhTTCQEKXWEk

[Michelle in GA]

I can't wait to get started!