Young Teen Short Stories

Clorinda laments being poor around Christmastime to her Aunt Emmy. Emmy remarks that some of the best presents aren't bought and paid for and declines to explain, only asking Clorinda to think it out. When she does this, Clorinda determines to give a little bit of herself in priceless presents to her loved ones near and far.

In Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves, Anne Shirley's guardian Marilla keeps Anne dressed in plain, dark clothes unlike the other girls her age. Matthew Cuthbert, Anne's kindred spirit and sometime benefactor, struggles to figure out how to solve this problem. He overcomes his shyness to ensure that a wonderful, unexpected present is waiting for Anne on Christmas day.

Sarah went to college to learn. She went for the classes and to prove her father wrong about what women could really achieve. But all she’s managed to do so far is mess things up. Without knowing how, she’s ended up with two men after her and no idea about which one she wants to be with. The clock is ticking, and she knows that neither of them will wait forever.

For some, high school is anything but a walk in the park. For senior Oliver Sticka, what to do after graduation is the last thing on his mind. Getting through phys-ed is more pressing. Never really fitting in with the other guys in his class, Ollie has a lot on his mind. Running, Ollie says, gives him the chance to be alone with his thoughts and figure things out... or is he just running away?

A collection of stories about a pig named Pigin and his friends, Sammy Seal, Sally Seagull, The Badger of Ballsbridge, and the fairies who live in Howth Castle. Pigin learns how to swim, goes on a magic carpet ride, and even gets to meet the President of Ireland! Ages eight and up.

"The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was the second tale published in The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1903.

"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.

"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is one of 13 stories in the collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English romantic and gothic novelist who is most famous as the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. She was married to the notable Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. She also wrote a number of shorter "tales of the unnatural", of which "The Mortal Immortal", a story of a man who will not die, is the most famous.

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.

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.

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.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman is known primarily as a "feminist" and "local color" writer, for such classic tales as "The Revolt of Mother". She wrote very entertaining stories that included clear depictions of the pressures that often silenced or devalued women and their concerns. This famous story gets that message across but not without a bit of humor.

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.

Mr. Cave, a shop owner, finds a strange crystal egg that serves as a window into a Martian landscape. The War of the Worlds was probably H.G. Wells' best-known work, but this brief tale indicates that he had more than a passing interest in Mars.

A motley crew, banished from a Western town, find strength, and weakness, in each other.

Mia Tyler had a crush on Jeremy Potter. Problem was Mia was only 15-and-a-half, at an age where she wasn't old enough for some things and too old for others. Would Jeremy ever see her the way she saw him?

Guy de Maupassant is considered one of the fathers of the modern short story. His narratives are characterized by an economy of style and the efficient way in which the various threads are neatly resolved. In "The False Jewels", a man who dotes on his wife is crushed by her unexpected death and then astounded by a revelation about her costume jewelry.

Here is one of London's famous stories of the Klondike, where men had to battle the elements, and often each other, to survive.