Featured Stories

The Man of the Crowd

The Man of the Crowd: Short story by Edgar Allan PoeThis story by Edgar Allan Poe opens with a man in high spirits after recovering from an illness sitting in a London coffee shop watching people go by in the street. He is absorbed in classifying them by occupation and social class until a “decrepid old man” with a fiendish expression unlike any he has seen before commands his attention. Curious, he follows the old man for twenty-four hours, learning nothing other than that he seems to want always to be part of a crowd. Themes include social class, obsession, curiosity, hidden secrets, urban alienation and loneliness.

Continue ReadingThe Man of the Crowd

Eleonora

Eleonora: Short story by Edgar Allan PoeIn this atypical Edgar Allan Poe story there is madness, but not the destructive kind; death, but not the gruesome kind; and a spirit, but not a frightening one. Also unusual is Poe’s extensive use of poetic prose. His description of the idyllic valley may be an allusion to the Garden of Eden, leaving readers to wonder if the couple’s incestuous lovemaking beneath the serpent-like trees was the “apple” that destroyed their paradise. Themes: the beauty of nature, innocence, passion, love, death, moving on. Poe’s message: true love endures; despite the loss of a loved one, life must go on.

Continue ReadingEleonora

The Day the Dancers Came

The Day the Dancers Came: Short story by Bienvenido SantosThis story by Bienvenido Santos is about an aging Filipino expatriate who feels cut off from his culture. After years of menial work in the United States, the protagonist has no remaining family and only one local, possibly terminally ill, Filipino friend. Rather naïvely, he decides to approach and offer to host to a group of visiting tinikling dancers. He is ignored, but makes an audio recording of their performance to remember them by. In the depressing denouement, he faces the grim reality of losing them all. Themes include nostalgia, connection with one’s roots, aging and death.

Continue ReadingThe Day the Dancers Came

The Moonlit Road

The Moonlit Road: Short story by Ambrose BierceIn this famous gothic horror story by Ambrose Bierce, a rich man has a loving wife who he does not trust. He sets a trap that doesn’t go as planned, resulting in him accidentally killing her. The unfortunate woman’s ghost, which is unaware who killed her, tries to contact him. This sets off a chain of events that ruins the lives of both the rich man and their only son. We hear the story from three perspectives: those of the son, a man we assume to be the husband/killer, and the ghost herself as told through a medium.

Continue ReadingThe Moonlit Road

The Lost Child

The Lost Child: Short story by Mulk Raj AnandMulk Raj Anand’s The Lost Child can be looked at on two levels. At its most basic, it is about a boy who gets so carried away by the excitement of a fair that he becomes separated from his parents. Alone in the arms of a kind stranger, all he wants is to be reunited with his mother and father. On another level, it is a story of life. When young, we can’t wait to leave home and make our way in the world. It is not until we lose our parents that we understand how important they really are.

Continue ReadingThe Lost Child

I Stand Here Ironing

I Stand Here Ironing: Short story by Tillie OlsenIn this story by Tillie Olsen, a woman reviews events that may help a counselor better understand her nineteen-year-old-daughter. In the process, she questions the extent to which she may be responsible for her daughter’s problems. Poor care choices and lack of attention as an infant, and conflict with her younger sister as she grew up, have clearly affected the girl’s emotional development. A key question is what, if anything, could the woman have done differently in a society indifferent to the plight of single mothers. Themes: parenting, mother-daughter relationships, female identity, child cruelty, guilt, acceptance, hope.

Continue ReadingI Stand Here Ironing

The Champion of Quiet

The Champion of Quiet: Short story by Tracy StewartThis story by Tracy Stewart for Highlights Magazine includes a number of important life lessons for young learners. The first is individual differences. Nobody is good at everything, but almost everybody is good at something. Importantly, you don’t have to be good at something to enjoy it. By joining in and trying your best, you can have just as much fun as those who are great at it. Maggie proved that she wasn’t just the Champion of Quiet. She became the Champion of Understanding and Kindness, and learned that this is the easiest way of all to make new friends.

Continue ReadingThe Champion of Quiet

The Jogi’s Punishment

The Jogi's Punishment: Indian Folktale from Andrew LangThe moral of this Indian folktale appears to be that evil will always receive the punishment it deserves. We have a famed holy man who turns out to be not very holy after all, a selfish, gullible rajah who wants to keep the holy man’s talents and blessings all for himself, and an overly curious princess who disobeys her father’s order not to leave the palace grounds. We aren’t told much about the “gallant young prince of Dilaram” but he, too, must have done something wrong to be punished with the disobedient princess as a wife.

Continue ReadingThe Jogi’s Punishment