thoughtfulQuick and Not-Too-Difficult Reads
The Matthew Martin books by Paula Danziger (start with Everyone Else's Parents Said Yes)
The Girls by Amy Goldman Koss
Rules by Cynthia Lord
The Anastasia Krupnik books by Lois Lowry
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books by Patricia MacDonald
Snap by Alison McGhee
The Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann M. Martin
Starting With Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Tru Confessions by Janet Tashjian
The All-of-a-Kind Family books by Sydney Taylor
Rubber Houses by Ellen Yeomans (verse novel)
Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer (verse novel)
Lulu Atlantis and the Quest for True Blue Love by Patricia Martin
Short Story Collections: Fantasy
Oddly Enough by Bruce Coville
Odder Than Ever by Bruce Coville
Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast by Jane Yolen
Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird by Vivian Vande Velde
Short Story Collections: Horror
(Not for the faint of heart and not for the littlest readers)
Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde
All Hallows' Eve by Vivian Vande Velde
Scary Stories anthologies by Alvin Schwartz
Short Story Collections: Like Real Life
Friends: Stories about New Friends, Old Friends, and Unexpectedly True Friends edited by Ann M. Martin and David Levithan (for upper elementary school)
Twice Told: Original Stories Inspired by Original Art by Scott Hunt (for ages 12 and up - 9 pieces of art by Hunt inspired stories by 18 different authors)
21 Proms edited by David Levithan (for older teens - 21 short stories by various authors)
How They Met, and Other Stories by David Levithan (for older teens - 18 short stories)
First Kiss (Then Tell) edited by Cylin Busby (for teens - real-life stories by 25 different authors)
No Such Thing as the Real World (for older teens - 6 short stories by 6 different authors)
Moccasin Thunder: American Indian Stories for Today, an anthology edited by Lori Marie Carlson (for older teens - 10 short stories by 10 different authors)
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci (for adults and older teens - 15 short stories by 17 different authors plus comic interstitials written by Black and Castellucci, illustrated by Bryan Lee O'Malley and Hope Larson)
Novels and Series That Work as Short Stories
The Fruit Bowl Project by Sarah Durkee
The Princess Tales by Gail Carson Levine
There are six separate short novels in this series...
- The Fairy's Mistake
- The Princess Test
- Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep
- Cinderellis and the Glass Hill
- For Biddle's Sake
- The Fairy's Return
...all of which have been bound together in one edition entitled The Fairy's Return and Other Princess Tales.
The Wayside School books by Louis Sachar
- Sideways Stories from Wayside School
- Wayside School is Falling Down
- Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger
- Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School
- More Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School
Anthologies and Collections
A collection of Greek myths
A collection of Egyptian myths
A collection of myths from around the world
A collection of Irish fairy tales
The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll
The short stories of Jack London
The short stories of Edgar Allan Poe
The short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
The short stories and fairy tales of Oscar Wilde
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Charles Perrault's fairy tales
Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Thomas Malory or William Caxton (also suitable: the version by Roger Lancelyn Green, who has additional books of myths and legends)
The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature
Related Booklists: Clean Reads for Early Teens, Tween Time (Timely), If Then for Middle School, and Middle School Selections