Featured Stories

Swimming Lessons

Swimming Lessons: Short story by Rohinton MistryThe major themes of this entertaining story by diasporic author Rohinston Mistry are alienation, cultural adjustment, and memory. The plot alternates between the experiences of an unnamed Parsi immigrant living in Toronto, and his parent’s reaction to his nostalgic manuscript about growing up in Bombay. Swimming is a means of moving forward while staying afloat, and his swimming lessons in order to “fit in” could also be seen as a metaphor for surviving and flourishing in his adopted country. Other themes include loneliness and desire, fear, racism, aging and death, cause and effect.

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All Summer in a Day

All Summer in a Day: Short story by Ray BradburySet on the planet Venus, the climate in this Ray Bradbury story features almost constant rain. The only break comes every seven years, when there are two hours of sunshine. The children of the Earth space travel families on the planet are all looking forward to playing outside during the short break. Only one of them has ever seen the sun, and she is having great trouble dealing with the constant rain. But when the sun finally does come out, she is nowhere to be seen. Themes include adaptability, envy, reaction to differences, and bullying..

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Lajwanti

Lajwanti: Short story by Mulk Raj AnandMany Mulk Raj Anand stories deal with the disadvantaged in traditional Indian society. Here a young woman from a poor rural family suffers under the custom of living with her in-laws. While her husband is temporarily living in the city, his sadistic older brother makes unwanted sexual advances. Knowing that no help will come from her mother-in-law, she runs away. When this doesn’t work, she tries to drown herself. Her thoughts when rescued: There is no way for me. I am condemned to live! Themes: women’s status in traditional Indian society, physical and sexual abuse, escape, humiliation, desperation, suicide.

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A New England Nun

A New England Nun: Short story by Mary E. Wilkins FreemanThe major themes of this Mary E. Wilkins Freeman story are honor, loyalty and self-sacrifice. A young engaged couple pledge to remain faithful to one another when the man asks for time before they marry to go away and make his fortune. Fourteen years later, he returns a rich man. Both have honoured the pledge, and they make wedding plans. Although circumstances have changed and each has a reason not to marry, neither will admit it out of respect for the other’s loyalty. An overheard conversation changes things. Other themes include choices and consequences, independence, solitude, gender roles, courage, identity.

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Marjorie Daw

Marjorie Daw: Short story by Thomas Bailey AldrichThe major theme of this story by Thomas Aldrich is how well-intentioned deception can lead to unexpected results. A wealthy, self-absorbed young man has difficulty adjusting to being confined to a sofa with a broken leg. His doctor asks the man’s best friend, who is holidaying near the sea with his sick father, to write frequently in order to “distract and cheer him up”. The friend complies, beginning with an innocent white lie about the beautiful girl living across the road. Unfortunately, as is often the case, one lie leads to another and soon the distraction grows into an obsession.

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The Pig That Went to Market

The Pig that went to Market: Children's story by Enid BlytonThis children’s story by Enid Blyton tells of a man who is so forgetful that he always leaves his kitchen door open. His pig knows this and spends most of its time sitting inside in front of the fire. One day the man finds that he has no money. He decides that selling the pig is a better idea than getting a job. However, his forgetfulness causes problems in taking the pig to market. When he finally does get it there, he receives a beating for his trouble. In the end, he faces an easy decision.

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You’ll Learn Soon Enough

You’ll Learn Soon Enough: Short story by Lao KhamhomThis tale by Lao Khamhom is a loosely based sequel to one of our earlier stories, As If It Had Never Happened. Road and bridge building projects have connected a once isolated Thai rice farming village to the outside world. A young girl, excited about her first bus-trip to a nearby town to sell vegetables, is befuddled by a petty extortion attempt at a government counterinsurgency checkpoint. Later, she experiences real graft when the “concessionaire” of a newly built highway refuses to allow her and other village busses to proceed. Themes include innocence, family, progress, connectivity, change, fear, oppression, corruption.

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Priscilla and the Wimps

Priscilla and the Wimps: Short story by Richard PeckIn addition to this being Richard Peck’s first young adult story, it is one of his most popular. This is undoubtedly because it not only follows the age-old success formula of a victorious underdog, but does so in the context of humiliating a school bully. Another plus is that the denouement is left to the reader’s imagination. Does Pricilla come back later in the day to release Monk? Do her or Melvin’s parents phone the school and arrange for the locker to be opened? Or do they come back in a week’s time and find that Monk is an ice-block?

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