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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does it cost to do the right thing when danger puts character to the test?
Short Stories for High Schools brings together American and British tales selected by educator Rosa M. R. Mikels. With writers including Poe, O. Henry, Kipling, and Edith Wharton, this collection offers a broad first taste of short fiction. Adventure, character, and moral courage give you several paths into stories that each fit within a single sitting.
Some tales turn on danger or a puzzle. Others bring a strong character into focus or ask what a hard choice demands. Rather than follow one long plot, you move between separate stories and different authors. The collection invites you to notice how a few pages can reveal a person—and make a question of right and wrong feel urgent.
What you’ll discover
- Adventure under pressure Meet people facing danger, puzzles, and hard places where their character comes into view.
- Character in a few pages Discover how a short tale can bring a whole person into focus.
- The cost of courage Consider what doing right demands, and who must bear the cost.
- American and British voices Explore different authors through a gathering of nineteenth and early twentieth century fiction.
- A story at a sitting Choose a separate tale and give its people, choices, and questions your full attention.
Who will love it
Readers who like a varied shelf will enjoy it: snow-bound adventure, ghost stories, tall tales, detective chases and quiet studies of character. It suits teachers, students and anyone who likes sampling many authors.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Faith takes the road into danger
- A voice can carry a story
- Courage appears in unlikely people
- Each clue moves the plot forward
- Serious voices make absurd events funny
- A small clue starts a pursuit
- Pressure reveals an unexpected inner strength
- Ordinary work can deserve deep respect
- The final stories turn toward conscience
Who’s who
- WinfriedAn English preacher in the forests of Germany who prefers hardship to ease and tries to win people away from the old gods.
- William LegrandA once wealthy man living on Sullivan's Island who becomes obsessed with a gold-colored beetle and a strange scrap of parchment.
- GallegherA quick-witted newspaper copy boy in Philadelphia who loves crime news and hopes to catch a wanted murderer for his paper.
- Sarah PennA New England farm wife who has endured forty years in a cramped house and now acts to claim a real home for her family.
- John OakhurstA calm, neat gambler driven out of Poker Flat, who keeps his nerve and quietly looks after weaker companions.
- Mr. GesslerA German bootmaker in London who treats every pair as a work of art and cannot compete with big firms.
- Miles MorganA young, blond lieutenant with deep faith, sent with a sergeant to warn a troop of danger, who later rides on alone.
- MarkheimA man who comes to a dealer's shop on Christmas Day with a plan and then meets a visitor who questions his whole life.
Formats and delivery
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Short Stories for High Schools in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Short Stories for High Schools
A frog full of shot, a cipher on old parchment and a ride through sleet fill twenty-one stories.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
Learn a language with medium classicsSpanishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseEnglishHow we measure levels
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In short
What do a woodsman who hunts demons in a snowy forest, a ten-year-old who insists on being called Red Chief, and a shoemaker who cannot bear a bad boot have in common? They all live in one volume of twenty-one stories, gathered in 1915 by Rosa M. R. Mikels, a teacher at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis.
Short Stories for High Schools at a glance
- Reading time
- About 8 h 30 min6 h 45 min fast, 10 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 120,900 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Adventure begins with a daring woodsman of faith
The book opens with The First Christmas Tree by Henry van Dyke, set on Christmas Eve in the year 722. Winfried, an English preacher the Romans call Boniface, walks into the forests of Germany to reach people who still serve the old gods.
In a cloister at Pfalzel, the boy Gregor reads Saint Paul in Latin but cannot say what it means. He admits he loves both soldiers and scripture and cannot see how the two fit together. Winfried answers with his own thick cowhide boots, the shoes of the gospel of peace. He invites Gregor to become a hunter of demons and a woodsman of the faith.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 9 h 40 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Short Stories for High Schools. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/short-stories-for-high-schools.
Short stories for high schools. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/short-stories-for-high-schools
Short Stories for High Schools. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/short-stories-for-high-schools.
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title = {Short Stories for High Schools},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/short-stories-for-high-schools}
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What is Short Stories for High Schools about?
It collects twenty-one short stories by American and British authors, arranged from simple tales of adventure and animals to complex studies of character and conscience, with an editor's introduction explaining how a short story is built.
Which authors are in Short Stories for High Schools?
The authors include Henry van Dyke, Joel Chandler Harris, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Mary Wilkins Freeman, John Galsworthy, Edith Wharton and Robert Louis Stevenson, among others.
What are the requirements of the short story in this book?
The introduction says a short story should make one single impression, with plot, character or setting taking first place. Incidents must follow cause and effect, and characters should behave in ways that make sense.
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