Short Story Anthologies for Kids

These are the kind of stories we all remember reading on gray afternoons, wearing sweatpants and sprawled on the floor, after having complained to Mom several bajillion times that we were bored. To which she invariably replied, "Go read a book. I'm busy." Why we always went to the old anthologies, typically from the 1950s and with covers as cracked and gray as the weather outside, was a mystery, because they never seemed appealing.

Until we started reading the stories inside. It was better than TV—tales of reckless Greek heroes, real-life Arctic explorers, animals who could talk and wear clothes (this never bothered us until we got older), foreign lands, horse races, etc., etc., etc. Okay, so maybe the pictures were a little hokey, and maybe all the facts weren't perfectly accurate, but these were good stories.

Keeping such vessels of imagination from our own children is little short of criminal. They need a place to forage their young minds, to stoke the fires of make-believe and ambition, and what better place than the pages of a short story anthology? Surely Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer won't have the same effect; no, lead kids to the source as a place of delight and awe, and they'll eat the fruit and drink the water because they want to.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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Parent Categories
Short Story Anthologies for Kids
9 Items found Print
Active Filters: 1st grade (Ages 6-7), New Books & Materials
Beacon First Reader
by James H. Fassett
from Yesterday's Classics
for 1st-2nd grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$18.95
Fifty Famous People
by James Baldwin
from Yesterday's Classics
for 1st-4th grade
in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$11.95
Fifty Famous Stories Retold
by James Baldwin
from Yesterday's Classics
for 1st-4th grade
$11.95
Fifty Famous Stories Retold
by James Baldwin
from Living Book Press
for 1st-4th grade
$8.99
For the Children's Hour
by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, Clara M. Lewis
from Yesterday's Classics
for Nursery-1st grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$18.95
Kindergarten Gems
by Agnes Taylor Ketchum, Ida M. Jorgensen
from Yesterday's Classics
for Preschool-1st grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$15.95
New World Echoes
Copper Lodge Library
by Compiled and Edited by Jennifer Courtney
from Classical Conversations
for 1st-6th grade
in Classical Conversations (Location: CUR-CC)
$14.95 $10.50 (2 in stock)
Reading-Literature: First Reader
by Harriette Taylor Treadwell, Margaret Free
from Yesterday's Classics
for 1st-2nd grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$10.95
Reading-Literature: Second Reader
by Harriette Taylor Treadwell, Margaret Free
from Yesterday's Classics
for 1st-2nd grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$11.95 $6.50 (1 in stock)