Short For Teens

Abdullah Syed Hari is fourteen years old. He loves his family and his friends. And he is a Somali pirate. A short story from Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Although best known for such long novels as Our Mutual Friend and The Old Curiosity Shop, Charles Dickens also wrote many wonderful short stories with both a supernatural and a humorous twist. This is one of his best.

His friends warned him not to try the fried pudding at the carnival, but Dan didn't listen. A short story in comics from Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka.

When a young John Lambton skips church to go fishing, he catches something unnatural. Fearful of his father's reaction to both skipping church and bringing such a foul creature to the house - he it throws in the well. Years later, after fighting in the Crusades, John returns home to an unpleasant surprise.

"Local color" author Frances Gilchrist Wood wrote this powerful tale of a young wife who proves better able to succeed on the homestead frontier than does her husband.

Here is another of O. Henry's entertaining "surprise ending" stories. A girl moves to the city looking for a friend she had lost track of and finds him in a very unusual way.

Stephen Crane's fascinating story "The Blue Hotel" is seen by many as a study of fear. Crane used the stereotypical 1890's American West as his setting, and the story uses a card game to show how fear feeds upon itself. There are both inner fears and fears existing in reality, and the ways that they interact with each other make for a fascinating tale.

The best and most revered works of famed poet and author, Edgar Allen Poe.

When it comes to short stories, Edgar Allan Poe is considered by many to be the master of terror and the macabre. This is one of his most famous stories. A man is tormented by a cat and decides to take a terrible vengeance, but things do not go as planned.

In "The Invisible Man", a murderer manages to get in and out of a house, even though it is under constant observation. In some ways, the story parallels Poe's "The Purloined Letter" but adds its own unique touches, particularly in the character and methods of priest-sleuth Father Brown.

Via a series of letters between himself and a friend, a man falls in love with a woman he has never met - and receives a shocking surprise when he travels to meet her.

"The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was originally published as part of The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1903.

In this short story, which takes place directly before The Change: Life, you will meet Jacob and Mia and get a tiny glimpse into how their very lives are tied in to the fate of the world - to the Changed themselves - and to the enigmatic creature that appears out of nowhere to destroy all that it sees, both humans and Changed alike.

For Natalie, Lake Huron is more than just one of the Great Lakes. For this seemingly average teenager of Native American descent, Lake Huron holds the secret to the unspoken truths of her childhood; the truths that reveal that she is anything but average; the truths behind her tribal swan name and ultimately, the key to her destiny.

When 10-year-old Lara Demming discovers her next-door neighbor is a witch, she is initially horrified by the discovery. And then, she becomes curious what she can learn from Old Widow Holcomb.

This is the first story of The Jungle Book, in which the reader is introduced to Mowgli, the jungle boy, and his animal friends.

Four sci-fi short stories where you'll find good computers, people who regret their past, and an explanation for something you're familiar with.

Never seen before private diary entries they don’t want you to know about. Peek into the mind of the making of a maverick, a window to the soul of an angry, young girl, who will come of age in a city on the verge of total annihilation.

When Jen spotted a poster for the upcoming Sadie Hawkins dance, she figures it's the perfect chance to ask out David, the boy she's been drooling over since school started. Unfortunately, Selena, the head cheerleader at their school has her eye on him as well. As her friends grab up their dream dates Jen stays dateless, She didn't think things could get worse until a teacher pulls Jen to the side and makes a request that threatens to push her into complete misery.

A truly creepy band of ghosts has been conjured up in this unusual and compelling collection of tales. In New York, Zia Tisna’s weird dolls keep watch over a pair of young lovers, while out of the River Thames crawls a ghost baby to torment Janet. Cousin Cherry falls victim to Mrs Wildeve’s gale-force powers, and Uncle Avvie returns from the Dismal Swamp with a bag full of something sinister.... More strange and spooky stories from bestselling author Joan Aiken.