(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best short story collections for children

It shouldn't be too difficult to find novels that match some of your criteria. Unusual mental states are pretty common, usually in the first person of either an animal or someone with a disorder, and there are tons of lists online. See for example: here or here. There also seem to be extensive lists of surrealist novels.

Personally, I recommend Tales from Outer Suburbia. You can take a look at the preview offered by amazon, and pictures on google images.

The Night Circus might fit. It's a good book either way.

I'm going to be teaching middle school, so a lot of books I'm reading right now are ones I'm reading to see if I'd like to have them or use them in my classroom.

Today I read The Circuit by Francisco Jiménez, and I'd really recommend it to anyone - even if you aren't in middle school. It's a semi-autobiographical account of a migrant child. Definitely recommend it. It won't take you very long to read, either.

I'm just starting on Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan.

I also recommend using math folk tales like Stories to Solve to make the problems more interesting. I have four books with these stories from other cultures and times and the kids love them.

Strange Happenings: Five Tales of Transformation by Avi

> And then there's a queen who desperately wants a little girl --- the most flawlessly beautiful girl in the world, to be exact. So she secretly consults a withered, ugly old hag named Esmeralda and proceeds to insult her. Still, Esmeralda grants her wish and soon the queen gives birth to a flawlessly beautiful daughter named Babette the Beautiful. The trouble is, the princess is so flawless that she's invisible! The queen banishes all mirrors from the kingdom and describes to artists how to draw portraits of her daughter. source

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

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amazon.com.au

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amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

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In this vein, I highly recommend Histoires à lire le soir. These are really cheap ($2 Kindle) books which contains a number of short stories. The stories are whimsical and interesting, short enough to be manageable but long enough to introduce new vocabulary. I've also found that though the stories are unrelated they contain a small amount of vocabulary overlap that serve as a sort of test. After graduating from DuoLingo I've found these to be a highly useful tool.

That was my favorite when I was a kid, and now my kids love it too. In fact, it's the same copy.

We have the sequel too: https://www.amazon.com/Another-Monster-This-Sesame-Street-ebook/dp/B00JS2MXEC/

Yep it's definitely "Half Minute Horrors." https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YW4LO6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

The story you're remembering is "An Easy Gig" by M.T. Anderson.

> Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo (obscure/hard to find, this was written for a magazine and though there are some continuity errors, it's still good and worth reading if you can find it)

For anyone interested, this short story is in Guys Read: Other Worlds.

It's a pretty good short story, but hard to place in a timeline for the series.

EDIT: I just realized that your list appears to be missing the Hotel Valhalla Guide to the Norse Worlds and the upcoming Camp Half-Blood Confidential. The Hotel Valhalla guide has a few short stories and interviews with different Norse gods along with a small overview of the Norse mythology used in the Magnus Chase series. I assume Camp Half-Blood Confidential will be the same. They don't have the amount or level of content that the short story collections like Demigod Files and Demigod Diaries, but they're probably worth getting.

Hmm, it could be this one: Life's Like A Crocodile, by Rolf Heimann. In the short description on the google books page, it describes a crocodile farmer's wife giving him a gift of the book: https://books.google.com/books/about/Life_s_Like_a_Crocodile.html?id=g4JHAAAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description

You can see a picture of the cover here: https://www.amazon.com/Lifes-Like-Crocodile-Rolf-Heimann/dp/1877003557

I think The Mad Scientist Club books are awesome to get kids into science and engineering. Of course, it's a book and all about boys. Still, might be a good gift.

I first heard about this in a book called Grandfather Tales. I've lived in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains for about 25 years, and that was the first time I'd heard of it. I thought it was fascinating. Leave it to the stubborn Scots-Irish... ;)

Like this book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Chronicles-Harris-Burdick-Introduction/dp/B00AKRXQN6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375550579&sr=8-1&keywords=harris+burdick

The title mentions that it's a book of 'Tales,' and how many there are. Then the description talks about the illustrations, inspiration for the collection, etc. They also use one of the illustrations for the cover.

The anthology Beware! by R.L. Stine might be something they'd enjoy. It was one of my favorite books as a kid.

Hi everyone,

I have started a new series of short stories based on an original character in the young fiction category.

"Alex Chase is an ordinary teenager with an extraordinary gift. Unknowingly, he is thrown into a world of intrigue and espionage. Learning to navigate this underworld while balancing the daily challenges of being a teenager (Exams! Girls! Bullies!), Alex has his work cut out, even for someone like him."

Feel free to check it out! It's $2.99 but also part of Kindle Unlimited

I know that story appears in A Book of Mermaids by Ruth Manning-Sanders (who did a bunch of "A Book of…" collections about fairies, giants, etc.).

(Another good one that doesn't have that story is Mermaid Tales from Around the World.)

At least, those were the two collections of mermaid stories they had in my local library back in the 90s. :)

After: nineteen stories of apocalypse and dystopia (Young Adult)

Black juice by Margo Lanagan

The Faery Flag: stories and poems of fantasy and the supernatural by Jane Yolen

Firebirds Rising: an anthology of original science fiction and fantasy

Firebirds Soaring: an anthology of original speculative fiction

First Meetings in Ender's Universe: other tales from the Ender Universe by Orson Scott Card

Flight series (graphic novel) by Kazu Kibuishi

Gold and Silver, Silver and Gold by Alvin Schwartz

Island Boyz by Graham Salisbury

Little Worlds: a collection of short stories for the middle school by Peter Guthrie

Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin

Water: tales of elemental spirits by Robin McKinley

A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Zombies vs. Unicorns by Holly Black (Young Adult)