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
50 Items found Print
Active Filters: 6th grade (Ages 11-12)
Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful
by Alfred Hitchcock, illustrated by Fred Banbery
from Random House
for 4th-8th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Alfred Hitchcock's Sinister Spies
by Alfred Hitchcock (editor); illustrated by Paul Spina
from Random House
for 4th-8th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
American Fairy Tales
1st edition from Hyperion Books for Children
for 3rd-Adult
American Tall Tales
by Adrien Stoutenberg
from Puffin Books
for 3rd-6th grade
$6.99
Animal Stories
by Edited by Walter de la Mare
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 3rd-8th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Anthology of Children's Literature
by Edna Johnson, Evelyn R. Sickels, and Frances Clarke Sayers (editors), illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg & N. C. Wyeth
4th edition from Houghton Mifflin
for 3rd-10th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Barefoot Book of Earth Tales
by Dawn Casey, Anne Wilson
from Barefoot Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum
by Ashley Bryan
from Aladdin Paperbacks
Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 3rd-7th grade
$9.99 $5.50 (5 in stock)
Beautiful Blue Jay and Other Tales of India
by John W. Spellman, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
1st edition from Little, Brown & Company
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Buddha Stories
by Demi
1st edition from Henry Holt and Company
for 3rd-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
Celtic Fairy Tales
by Neil Philip, illustrated by Isabelle Brent
from Viking Press
for 3rd-8th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$12.00 (2 in stock)
Children's Stories from Dickens
by Charles Dickens, Mary Angela Dickens
from Gramercy Books
for 3rd-7th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Chronicles of Harris Burdick
by Chris Van Allsburg
1st edition from Houghton Mifflin
for 5th-8th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
$19.99
Classics to Read Aloud to Your Children
by William Russell
from Three Rivers Press
for Kindergarten-8th grade
in Reading Aloud & Story-telling (Location: LIR-RAST)
Courage to Adventure
by Child Study Association of America (editors), illustrated by Reisie Lonette
from Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
for 3rd-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Cow-Tail Switch
by Harold Courlander, George Herzog
Reissue from Square Fish Publishing
for 5th-7th grade
1948 Newbery Honor Book
Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural
by Patricia C. McKissack, illustrated by Brian Pinkney
from Yearling
for 4th-7th grade
1993 Newbery Honor Book
$7.99
Dog of Flanders and Other Stories
by Louise De La Ramee
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 3rd-6th grade
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
English Fairy Tales
by Joseph Jacobs
from Everyman's Library
for 3rd-6th grade
$21.00
Favorite Folktales from Around the World
by Jane Yolen
from Pantheon Books
for 4th-Adult
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters
by Kathleen Ragan, Foreword by Jane Yolen
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 5th-Adult
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$16.95
Gold Thread and Other Stories of Young Faith
by Norman Maclead
from Whole Heart Ministries
for 3rd-6th grade
in Morality Tales (Location: FIC-WH05)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Golden Prize and Other Stories About Horses
by Mel Crawford, illustrator
from Whitman Publishing Company
for 4th-6th grade
in Vintage Anthology Collections (Location: VIN-ANTH)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Illustrated Treasury of Modern Literature for Children
from Exeter Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Kingfisher Book of Classic Boy Stories
by Michael Morpurgo, editor
1st edition from Kingfisher
in Picture Book Treasuries (Location: PIC-TRE)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Laugh Book
by Compiled by Joanna Cole and Stephanie Calmenson, Illustrated by Marilyn Hafner
from Doubleday & Company
for 3rd-6th grade
in Humor & Comedy (Location: FIC-COM)
Moral Compass
by William J. Bennett
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
for 4th-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
More Stories to Remember Volume 1
by Thomas B. Costain & John Beecroft
from Doubleday & Company
for 6th-12th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Open the Doors
by Margery Fisher (collected and arranged by)
First American Edition from World Publishing Company
for 2nd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Oscar Wilde Stories for Children
by Oscar Wilde, illustrated by PJ Lynch
from Hodder Children's
for 4th-8th grade
Paul Buyan
by Esther Shephard
Reissue from Odyssey Press
for 3rd-7th grade
Pigtail of Ah Lee Ben Loo
by John Bennett
from Longmans, Green & Co.
for 3rd-8th grade
1929 Newbery Honor Book
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Stories of Wizards
by Gillian Doherty, illustrated by Linda Edwards
from Usborne
for 3rd-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$8.10 (1 in stock)
Stories to Solve
by George Shannon
1st edition from Greenwillow Books
for 5th-7th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
Sweet and Sour
from HMH Books for Young Readers
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$8.95
Tale of the Cid: and Other Stories of Knights and Chivalry
by Andrew Lang
from Dover Publications
for 6th-Adult
$9.95
Tales from Japan
by Helen & William McAlpine
from Oxford University
for 4th-6th grade
Tales from Silver Lands
by Charles J. Finger
from Dover Publications
for 4th-8th grade
1925 Newbery Medal winner
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
$12.99
Tales from Silver Lands
by Charles J. Finger
1971 printing from Doubleday & Company
for 4th-8th grade
1925 Newbery Medal winner
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (2 in stock)
Tales Told Again
by Walter De La Mare
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 4th-8th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
Tenggren's Golden Tales from the Arabian Nights
by Gustaf Tenggren
from Golden Books
for 1st-6th grade
Urashima and the Kingdom Beneath the Sea
by Ralph F. McCarthy
for 4th-6th grade
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Wise Words
by Peter Leithart
from GCB Publishing Group
for 3rd-8th grade
$8.00 (1 in stock)
World's Best Fairy Tales
by Belle Becker Sideman (editor), illustrated by Fritz Kredel
from Reader's Digest
for 3rd-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
World's Best Fairy Tales Volume 1
by Belle Becker Sideman (editor), illustrated by Fritz Kredel
from Reader's Digest
for 3rd-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
World's Best Fairy Tales Volume 2
by Belle Becker Sideman (editor), illustrated by Fritz Kredel
from Reader's Digest
for 3rd-6th grade
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
Young Oxford Book of Folk Tales
by Kevin Crossley-Holland
from Oxford University
for 4th grade-adult
in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories
by Isaac Bashevis Singer
from HarperCollins
for 3rd-6th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
$7.95 $5.00 (1 in stock)
Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories
by Isaac Bashevis Singer; illustrated by Maurice Sendak
from Harper & Row
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (2 in stock)