Short Story Anthologies for Kids

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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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Short Story Anthologies for Kids

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Preschool (Ages 4-5)

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Aesop's Fables

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4th grade (Ages 9-10)

"Why" Stories

by Edward W. Dolch, Marguerite P. Dolch

from Garrard Publishing Company

for 2nd-4th grade

in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH)

Aesop's Fables

Illustrated Junior Library Series 4

by Aesop, illustrated by Fritz Kredel

from Grosset & Dunlap

Fables for 2nd-6th grade

in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT)

Aesop's Fables

by Aesop, illustrated by Michael Hague

from Henry Holt and Company

Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 1st-5th grade

in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)

Aesop's Fables

Illustrated Junior Library Series 2

by Aesop, illustrated by Fritz Kredel

from Grosset & Dunlap

for 2nd-6th grade

in Illustrated Junior Library (Location: VIN-IJL)

Aesop's Fables

Puffin Classics

by Aesop

Reprint from Puffin Books

Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Kindergarten-4th grade

in Puffin Classics (Location: FIC-PUF)

$7.99

Aesop's Fables

Children's Classics

by Aesop, illustrated by Nora Fry

from Dilithium Press, Ltd.

for 2nd-6th grade

in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT)

Aesop's Fables

Illustrated Junior Library Series 1

by Aesop, illustrated by Fritz Kredel

from Grosset & Dunlap

for 2nd-6th grade

in Illustrated Junior Library (Location: VIN-IJL)

Aesop's Fables

by Aesop, illustrated by Harry Rountree

from Gallery Books

for 3rd-9th grade

in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT)

$14.00 (1 in stock)

Aesop's Fables

by Aesop, illustrated by Arthur Rackham

from Macmillan

Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 1st-Adult

in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)

$14.99

Aesop's Fables

by Aesop, illustrated by Michael Hague

from Henry Holt and Company

Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 1st-5th grade

in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)

$8.00 (1 in stock)

Aesop's Fables

by Aesop, retold by Anne Terry White, illustrated by Helen Siegl

from California State Department of Education

for 2nd-4th grade

in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)

Aesop's Fables for Children

by Aesop, illustrated by Milo Winter

Pap/Com from Dover Publications

for 2nd-5th grade

in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)

$14.99

After Many Days

by L. M. Montgomery

for 4th-8th grade

in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)

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

From Rip Van Winkle to the Rootabaga Stories

1^st edition from Hyperion Books for Children

for 3rd-Adult

in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT)

American Tall Tales

by Adrien Stoutenberg

from Puffin Books

for 3rd-6th grade

in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT)

$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

4^th edition from Houghton Mifflin

for 3rd-10th grade

in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)

Arabian Nights

Illustrated Junior Library Series 1

by Earle Goodenow, illustrator

from Grosset & Dunlap

Eastern Fairy Tales for 4th-8th grade

in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT)

Arabian Nights

by Orton Lowe

from John C. Winston

for 3rd-6th grade

in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT)

Arabian Nights / Aesop's Fables

by Mamoru Funai, Aesop

from Grosset & Dunlap

for 4th-7th grade

in Companion Library (Location: VIN-FIC)

Atlantic Treasury of Childhood Stories

by Mary D. Huchinson Hodgkins (selector and editor), illustrated by Beatrice Stevens

from Atlantic Monthly Press

for 1st-5th grade

in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)

$16.00 (1 in stock)

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)

$10.00 (1 in stock)

Bears, Pirates and Silver Lace

Stories of Old California

by Anne B. Fisher; illustrated by Phil Nesbitt

from Binford & Mort Publishing

for 2nd-4th grade

in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)

$7.00 (1 in stock)

Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum

by Ashley Bryan

from Aladdin Paperbacks

Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 3rd-7th grade

in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT)

$9.99 $5.50 (5 in stock)

Beautiful Blue Jay and Other Tales of India

by John W. Spellman, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

1^st edition from Little, Brown & Company

for 3rd-6th grade

in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)

$9.00 (1 in stock)