Young Teen Short Stories

In this short story fiction, you’re entreated to the life of a one dollar bill, Todd. Todd falls for a higher denomination, a bill that’s as sassy as him. However, in a world more uncertain than ours, with his movements constrained by his human carrier, will Todd ever escape his form of slavery, let alone sail off with his new love?

Edgar Allan Poe may be 150 years beyond this world, but the themes of his beloved works have much in common with modern young adult fiction. Whether the stories are familiar or discovered for the first time, listeners will revel in both Edgar Allan Poe's classic tales, and in the 13 unique and unforgettable ways that they've been brought to life.

Together in one package for the first time, the dazzling prequels to the Three Dark Crowns series are finally available for fans in audio format. Uncover the sisters’ origins, dive deep into the catastrophic reign of the Oracle Queen, and reveal layers of Fennbirn’s past, hidden until now.

Whether or not you believe in fate, or luck, or love at first sight, every romance has to start somewhere. Meet Cute is an anthology of original short stories featuring tales of "how they first met" from some of today's most popular YA authors.

Looking to get in out of a brutally cold night, Daniel enters the club, Smoke. What he discovers within will force him to make his greatest decision.

Black, like a select few other beings, is a soul reaper, whose sole predilection is to claim human souls. However, his life is turned upside down in a chance encounter with a human woman. Black’s memories of his past human life come flooding back to him. Will he continue to hunt human souls or will he turn against the authority and now hunt the hunters? This is the tale of the beginnings of Black’s journey as a changed reaper.

Jason is born the son of King Aeson. His destiny is to rule Iolcus, the land that his father's brother, King Pelias, has taken from him. When Jason comes of age, he returns to Iolcus. But the king is not yet willing to give up his throne. So he cunningly persuades Jason to accept a dare to bring back the famous Golden Fleece of Colchis. Jason accepts the challenge, unaware that he is being conned into a dangerous and perhaps fatal journey far, far from the land he loves.

In books like Buried Onions and Boys at Work, Gary Soto displays a gift for revealing the tough, heart-breaking life of contemporary urban kids. In Petty Crimes, Soto offers 10 stories about the risky situations and dangerous little scams faced by young people growing up on the harsh streets of the city.

Everyone at the large agricultural college dubbed Moo U. has an agenda. Whether it's massaging data, running secret experiments, or seducing the powerful, each person is dedicated to a plan. Meet Dr. Lionel Gift, who feels that his economic principles come directly from God. Visit with "Earl Butz", who is being groomed to be the biggest hog in history. Mull over The Common Wisdom, what every secretary knows. As these agendas begin to collide, Moo trots toward a deliciously loony climax.

Abby never expected life to be easy. The daughter of a father she's never met and a mother who works three jobs just to get by, she walks herself to her middle school in Chicago, fixes her own dinners, and keeps herself company. Despite all the disadvantages stacked against her, however, Abby manages to keep a smile on and even dedicates her time to helping others who have even less than her. But one July day, something happens in the city that causes a mass panic while she's out grocery shopping, and Abby's life is forever changed.

"Years later," Donald Davis remember of his childhood," I came to realize that when you come from a long-dammed-up Scots-Irish gene pool it is an okay thing to wish for something, but it is not an OK thing to get it."

A host of the smartest young adult authors come together in this collection of scary stories and psychological thrillers curated by Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea's April Genevieve Tucholke. Each story draws from a classic tale or two - sometimes of the horror genre, sometimes not - to inspire something new and fresh and terrifying. There are no superficial scares here; these are stories that will make you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat.

Grandma's house was a magical place, and in this vivid memoir, Donald Davis makes it possible for each of us to go back to our own grandma's kitchen, clutter room, living room, and to that immeasurable bed that seemed to swallow us whole. This selection also contains a traditional story Davis learned from his grandmother, one handed down through his family from generations who once lived in Scotland before coming to the Appalachian mountains, about the time that fortune-seeker named Jack made the king mad.

The hero of this book is a prune. His journey begins in an ordinary way: he is picked, packed in a box with the rest of the crop, and carried off to the packing shed. But along the way, his life takes an unexpected turn. When his crate tips over, Prune meets Pica, a magpie. As they travel together, they meet Muskrat. The three soon become friends and begin an epic quest that will teach them much about loyalty, adventure, and courage.

In "The Time Machine", Davis offers us both the story of the reunion and the collectively remembered story of his classmates' senior year. In 1962, Waynesville, North Carolina, was that small town where the school principal also served as a teacher, the football coach, and the Sunday-school superintendent. One classmate spends his time in the bar wishing for a time machine, so he can go back to his teenage years with his accumulated experience.

Meet an earnest first-grader, intent upon convincing his hill-country parents that other children are treated to a party each year on their birthday, that they invite friends, eat cake - and receive presents. Meet also his equally intent mother, who is determined not to open this can of worms, not with the 128 cousins who might start doing the same thing. Both of them step out of this luminous story that turns the concept of "good neighbors" upside down.

Joe Davis was in his mid-40s when he became a father, and the experience he was able to apply in raising his sons lent creativity to his parenting. The five stories here recall the wisdom of fathers with humor and rich detail: a visit to the Smithsonian inspires father's memory; father "cures" a boy's impulse to try cigarettes; Santa Claus learns an important lesson; and someone plays a trick on a visiting preacher.

No world is like the other. Within this masterful collection, each setting is more strange and wonderful than the last, brimming with new technologies and beings. And yet, for all the advances in these futuristic lands, the people still must confront deeply human problems. In these six stories, Veronica Roth reaches into the unknown and draws forth something startlingly familiar and profoundly beautiful.

A toy giant and a clockwork unicorn star in this retelling of Aesop's fable "The Lion and the Mouse" in a steampunk fantasy setting.

Triumph. Tragedy. The empyreal. The infernal. Even the mundane, filtered through the fantastical. Superheroes are, appropriately enough, a sort of super-genre, encompassing all other story types. This YA anthology features thirteen short stories that creatively turn superhero tropes on their head, while still paying homage to the genre that has found fans for more than eight decades. And there will be no mistake—superheroes don’t have to just be generic handsome white dudes.