A reading & discussion series for teenage learners

Short Stories for Teens

Twelve classic stories worth arguing about — each in two levels, B2/C1 and A2/B1.

A girl who invents a ghost story on the spot. A boy punished for being right. A child offered more money than her family has ever held, for one piece of information. A promise kept for twenty years, at a terrible price. A school lesson that turns out to be the last one. And a firework who is absolutely certain the royal wedding is about him. Saki, Jewett, O. Henry, Daudet and Wilde — comic, humane, and safe to discuss with any class.

And six with sharper teeth: a charm that grants three wishes and takes something for each one; two enemies pinned under the same tree; a kidnapping that goes catastrophically right for the boy; a man alone in seventy below; a lawyer who bets fifteen years of his life; and a signalman who keeps seeing a figure at the mouth of a tunnel. Jacobs, Saki, O. Henry, London, Chekhov and Dickens — still frightening, still funny, and still worth an argument.

Every story comes as a pair: a B2/C1 version and an easier A2/B1 retelling, linked to each other at the top of every lesson — so you can switch level mid-lesson. The speaking tasks always offer non-personal alternatives: nobody has to talk about themselves.

The twelve stories

STORY 01
The Open Window
Saki · 1914
A nervous visitor is left with a girl of fifteen for ten minutes, and she tells him exactly the story he is ready to believe.
The turn: "Romance at short notice was her speciality."
Narrative tenses & inversionOpen →
STORY 02
The Lumber Room
Saki · 1914
A boy is punished for being right about a frog, and spends the afternoon in the one room of the house nobody is allowed to enter.
The turn: the aunt in the rainwater tank, calling for a ladder
Participle clausesOpen →
STORY 03
A White Heron
Sarah Orne Jewett · 1886
A friendly stranger offers ten dollars — a fortune — to whoever shows him where a rare bird nests. Only one person knows.
The turn: she climbs the great pine, and says nothing
Third, mixed & inverted conditionalsOpen →
STORY 04
After Twenty Years
O. Henry · 1906
Two friends agreed to meet on the same street corner twenty years later, whatever had become of them. Both of them keep the appointment.
The turn: "Somehow I couldn't bring myself to do it myself."
Perfect aspect across timeOpen →
STORY 05
The Last Class
Alphonse Daudet · 1873
A boy who never learned his grammar arrives late to school and finds the village sitting at the back of the classroom.
The turn: two words, in the largest letters he could write
Regret & the unreal pastOpen →
STORY 06
The Remarkable Rocket
Oscar Wilde · 1888
A firework is certain that the royal wedding has been arranged around him, and weeps at his own sensitivity until he is too wet to light.
The turn: the only piece of him lands on a goose
Emphasis & cleft sentencesOpen →
STORY 07
The Monkey's Paw
W. W. Jacobs · 1902
An old soldier brings back a dried charm that grants three wishes, throws it on the fire, and tells them to let it burn. They keep it, and wish for two hundred pounds.
The turn: they get exactly what they asked for.
Must have, might have, can't haveOpen →
STORY 08
The Interlopers
Saki · 1919
Two men whose families have hated each other for three generations meet in a dark forest, each intending to settle it — and a tree falls on them both.
The turn: they forgive each other. Then they look up.
Future forms & predictionsOpen →
STORY 09
The Ransom of Red Chief
O. Henry · 1907
Two small-time crooks kidnap a rich man's ten-year-old son and demand two thousand dollars. The boy is having the best week of his life.
The turn: by day three, they are offering to pay the father.
Phrasal verbsOpen →
STORY 10
To Build a Fire
Jack London · 1908
A man walks alone through the Yukon at seventy degrees below zero. He has been told not to travel alone in that cold. He is confident, and he is not stupid — he is just new.
The turn: the fire is lit. Then the snow on the branch above it moves.
Concession & contrastOpen →
STORY 11
The Bet
Anton Chekhov · 1889
At a party, a banker says life imprisonment is crueller than execution. A young lawyer disagrees — and bets two million that he can stay locked in one room for fifteen years.
The turn: what he writes on the final night.
Regret & the road not takenOpen →
STORY 12
The Signal-Man
Charles Dickens · 1866
A railway signalman works alone in a deep cutting beside a tunnel mouth. He tells a visitor that a figure appears at the tunnel, waving — and that each time it comes, something terrible follows.
The turn: the words the stranger was shouting.
Past perfect & sequencingOpen →

How each lesson works

1 · Key Words

Ten words unlocked first, so the story reads smoothly.

2 · The Story

Read it in parts, pausing to discuss as the meaning builds.

3 · Grammar

One structure the story teaches by example, with practice.

4 · Going Deeper

The theme, the twist, and how the writer pulls it off.

5 · Speaking

Three timed tasks that put it all to work.

📚 Ready for more? Short Stories, Long Shadows The full series — fifty-nine of the sharpest classic stories ever written, B2/C1 with A2/B1 twins. →