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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Recommended Short Stories for 9th and 10th Graders (Academic Level)

For Moderate to Strong Readers

"Father and I" by Par Lagerkvist  
[A son is devastated when he has a panic attack during a nature walk with his father.]

"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs
[An elderly couple and their son are granted three wishes from a magical talisman.]

"The Beginning of Grief" by Larry Woiwode
[A widower with five children. struggles to connect with his middle son.]

"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe
[A haughty prince and his courtiers quarantine themselves within a monastery and celebrate their immunity from a plague that has already wiped out half the kingdom. An unexpected guest arrives in a ghoulish costume and terrible things begin to happen.]

"The Bet" by Anton Chekhov
[Two impetuous young upstarts enter into an implausible bet and must deal with the unforeseen consequences of their rash, youthful commitments.]

"The Storyteller" by Saki (H.H. Munro)
[A bachelor entertains three unruly children with a slightly improper and unconventional story about a good little girl.]

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut
[In a future, dystopian American where everyone is "finally equal" such that no one has any advantage over anyone else, a young genius attempts to foment revolution with the tv cameras running.]

"The Doll's House" by Katherine Mansfield
[A girl who is smitten with a dollhouse and its "perfect little lamp" makes - goes out on a limb (unlike her peers) to bring two little outcasts into the fold - and is punished for her good deed.]

"In Another Country" by Ernest Hemingway
[Soldiers at the end of WWI, recuperating from war wounds, wonder what the future may bring.]

"The Egg" by Sherwood Anderson
[A boy watches and his parents struggle to achieve the American dream - with the help of chickens.]

"Day of the Butterfly" by Alice Munro
[A young Canadian girl tries to find the courage to befriend one of the less popular girls in sixth grade.]

"The Piece of String" by Guy de Maupassant
[An old farmer suffers gossip and innuendo from his fellow villagers - all because of a piece of string.]

"The Secret Lion" by Alberto Alvaro Rios
[Two boys discover their perceptions of the world are constantly changing as their move through their adolescence.]

"Gryphon" by Charles Baxter
[An eccentric substitute teacher comes to visit a 4th grade class in a small, midwestern town and ends up provoking her pupils to learn how to distinguish "fact" from "fiction."]

"Mother Savage" by Guy de Maupassant
[An old woman worried about her soldier son turns into a quiet avenger after receiving some bad news about her son's fate.]

"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
[A scary scenario of hunter vs. hunted plays out on an island in the Caribbean.]

"The Body Snatcher" by Robert Louis Stevenson
[A supernaturally-tinged, gothic tale about grave-robbers and the demands of science.]

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Leguin
[A social contract in a prosperous, happy community is founded on the ongoing suffering of a single child.]

"Winter Dreams" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
[A young caddie struggles with unrequited love for an elusive rich girl.]

"The Sniper" by Liam O'Flaherty
[A sniper is caught up in a firefight with the most unlikely of enemies.]

"Thank you M'am" by Langston Hughes
[A formidable woman befriends a young, would-be thief.]

For Especially Strong Readers

"Once Upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer

"The Child by Tiger" by Thomas Wolfe

"The Nose" by Nikolai Gogol

"The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol

"Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor

"Revelations" by Katherine Mansfield

"The Man Who was Almost a Man" by Richard Wright

"Barn Burning" by William Faulkner

"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane

"Paul's Case" by Willa Cather

"Teddy" by J.D. Salinger

"The Scapegoat" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving

"The Birthmark" + "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The Swimmers" by John Cheever

"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell

"Four Meetings" by Henry James

"The Three Strangers" by Thomas Hardy

"The Withered Arm" by Thomas Hardy

"The Sisters" by James Joyce

"After the Ball" by Leo Tolstoy

"The Happy Man" by Naguib Mahfouz

"The Last Judgment" by Karel Capek

"Poor Fish" by Alberto Moravia

"The South" by Jorge Luis Borges

"The Sphinx Without a Secret" by Oscar Wilde

"The Beggar" by Anton Chekhov

"The New Villa" by Anton Chekhov

"In the Ravine" by Anton Chekhov

"A Hunger Artist" by Franz Kafka

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