Short Stories About Growing Up: 10 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Ten classic coming-of-age short stories, from Araby and Her First Ball to Bernice Bobs Her Hair and Paul's Case, summarised and compared, with the craft each teaches a writer.
Growing-up stories are read by people in the middle of it, who want to know if it ends, and by people past it, who want to know when it happened. The short story is the natural form because growing up does happen in a moment, usually an evening, usually in public.
The collection begins with the evenings out, moves through the boys who want to leave, and ends with a duckling and a girl who cannot step onto a boat. Each title links to a page that summarises the story and explains its ending.
The stories
Araby by James Joyce. A Dublin boy carries a neighbour's sister in his mind like a chalice through the Saturday market, and promises her a gift from a bazaar. He arrives with his coins as the hall goes dark, and what he sees is himself.
Her First Ball by Katherine Mansfield. Leila, up from the country, floats through her first dance in a blur of gaslight and gloves until a fat, bald partner tells her what she will be like in thirty years. Then the next young man asks.
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield. Laura Sheridan, in charge of the marquee on the morning of the party, learns that a carter in the lane has been killed and wants everything stopped. That evening she carries leftovers to the widow and is shown into a bedroom.
Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A dull visiting cousin lets the popular Marjorie coach her into flirting, and it works until Marjorie, jealous, dares her in public to actually cut her hair. Bernice goes to the barber, and later that night to Marjorie's bedroom with scissors.
Paul's Case by Willa Cather. A Pittsburgh boy with a red carnation in his buttonhole despises his street and lives for the concert hall where he ushers. He takes a thousand dollars that is not his and buys a week of the life he imagined.
A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett. A nine-year-old girl who has never had a friend her own age is charmed by a young hunter with a gun and a promise of ten dollars. At dawn she climbs the tallest pine to find what he wants, and decides.
The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen. A grey duckling, mocked and chased from the farmyard, survives a winter alone in the reeds and in spring drifts toward three white birds, expecting to be killed. He sees his reflection.
Bade Bhai Sahab by Premchand. A boy at boarding school keeps passing exams without studying while his elder brother, who studies constantly, keeps failing and lecturing him about it. The elder brother's last speech is the story's turn.
Idgah by Premchand. Hamid, four years old and fatherless, has three paise at the Eid fair and watches richer boys spend theirs on sweets and clay soldiers. He buys iron tongs, and defends the choice all the way home.
Eveline by James Joyce. Eveline Hill sits at a window with a letter to her father and a letter to her brother, and the boat for Buenos Aires leaves tonight. At the quay her sailor calls her.
Reading them together
The collection's argument is that growing up is a single act of seeing, and the writers differ only on what is seen. Joyce's boy sees his own vanity; Laura sees a dead man's face and finds it beautiful; Leila sees her old age in a fat man's mouth and forgets it in a bar of music. Fitzgerald and Cather write the same story twice, the girl who takes revenge and the boy who takes the money.
Idgah and A White Heron are the two where a child chooses against their own desire and the story honours it, and both end with the child keeping something the adults would have sold.
Judges of Writory's short story contest read for Character first, and the coming-of-age moment, when it turns on one small refusal like Sylvia's silence, is where that mark is won or lost.
If you want to write about growing up
What writers can take from this
- Read Araby and Eveline together; they are the first two stories of adolescence in Dubliners and a boy and a girl at the same threshold.
- Her First Ball and The Garden Party are Mansfield at eighteen and at twenty, in that order.
- Bernice Bobs Her Hair is long and funny; read it for the party dialogue.
- Idgah and A White Heron pair well for younger readers.
- Paul's Case is the darkest; read it last.
Try it yourself
Write a story that takes place over a single evening out, at the end of which a young character understands something about themselves that they will spend years trying to un-know.
Questions
What is the best short story about growing up?
Araby is the standard, and The Garden Party the most complete. Paul's Case is the American classroom's choice.
Which coming-of-age stories are good for students?
Araby, Her First Ball, Idgah and Bade Bhai Sahab are short and clear. Bernice Bobs Her Hair is longer but the most fun to teach.
Which classic coming-of-age story is the shortest?
Eveline, at about eighteen hundred words, then Araby at roughly two thousand.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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