Short Story Example for Kids: A Complete Story for Young Readers and How to Write One
Quick answer: An original short story for young readers, a ten-year-old goalkeeper in a penalty shootout, with a breakdown of how to write for children without talking down to them.
A short story for children needs the same things as any story, a person who wants something, trouble, and a change, told in language a young reader can hear in their head. What it does not need is a lesson at the end or a narrator who explains feelings. The original story below is about a ten-year-old who plays goalkeeper because nobody else will, and it was written to be read by children of eight and up or by teenagers writing for them. The breakdown afterwards shows the choices.
Gloves
Maya was the goalkeeper because on the first day of the season Mr Fielding had said 'Who wants to go in goal?' and eleven people had looked at their boots. She had not put her hand up. She had just not looked at her boots fast enough. Now it was March, the cup semi-final, two-all after extra time, and it was going to be penalties, and everyone on the team was suddenly very interested in Maya. The gloves were too big. They had been her cousin's. When she made a fist inside them the fingers stayed straight, so she looked like she was waving. The first Ashford player hit it low to her left and she went the right way and it went in anyway, under her arm, because she had dived too early. The second one she went the wrong way completely and heard the net before she hit the ground. Behind her, her dad's voice said 'Unlucky,' which was what he said when it was not unlucky. Two down. She got up. The third Ashford player was a tall boy who had already scored twice in the match, and he put the ball down and looked at the top corner, and then looked at the other top corner, and Maya thought, he doesn't know. He doesn't know where he's putting it either. So she did not move. She stood in the middle with her big gloves out and waited, and he hit it straight at her, chest height, because he had run out of ideas, and it thumped into her and stayed there. The noise from behind her was enormous. They lost the shootout four-three. In the car her dad was quiet for a while and then he said, 'That third one. You didn't move.' 'He didn't know where he was going,' Maya said. 'So I waited.' 'That's the best thing I've seen you do,' he said. 'All season.' Maya looked at the gloves on her lap. She decided she would ask for her own pair for her birthday. Not because she liked being in goal. Because she was going to be there anyway, and she might as well be able to make a fist.
How the story respects its reader
The story is honest about outcomes. Maya lets in two, saves one, and her team loses. A story that let her save all three would be a wish, and children know the difference. The victory is smaller and truer: she reads a player and waits, and her father notices. The father is drawn in two lines of dialogue and one habit, saying 'Unlucky' when it is not, which a child reader will recognise from their own life.
The language stays at Maya's eye level without shrinking. 'Heard the net before she hit the ground' is a physical fact a ten-year-old would notice. The gloves are the object that carries the story from accident to choice: too big and borrowed at the start, wanted and her own by the end. The last two sentences give her reasoning in her own voice, and it is practical rather than inspirational.
Writing for young readers
Choose a protagonist slightly older than your intended reader. Give them a problem they did not choose and a small skill they discover under pressure. Let adults be present but limited to a line or two. Keep the ending honest about what was won and lost. Do not explain the feeling; a child who has stood in goal knows it already.
What writers can take from this
- Age the protagonist a year or two above the reader.
- Give them a borrowed object they can make their own by the end.
- Let them lose the big thing and win the small one.
- Write adult dialogue the way children actually hear it.
- Cut every sentence that begins with 'She realised' or 'He understood'.
Try it yourself
Write a story of under 500 words for readers aged eight to twelve, in which a child is given a job nobody else wants. They must fail at it visibly at least once, and the story must end with them choosing to keep it.
Questions
How long should a short story for kids be?
For readers of eight to twelve, 400 to 1,200 words is comfortable. Picture-book length is far shorter and works differently. If a teenager is writing for a contest, a 500 to 800 word story for children sits well inside most limits.
Should a children's story have a moral?
It should have a consequence. Children distrust a story that stops to tell them what it meant. Let the character make a choice and show what follows; the reader will draw the lesson if there is one.
Can teenagers enter short story competitions with stories for children?
Yes. Most contests judge the writing, not the intended audience, and a well-made children's story often stands out. Writory's short story contest accepts writers from 13 and scores every entry out of 100 with a certificate.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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