How to read with your eyes shut: short stories to read aloud

Books to read to younger children

Sid Fleischman A carnival of animals: Short tall stories from the master of the art of oddball storytelling.
James Marshall, Rats on the range and other stories: Six-foot rats, a pig's night out, and a mouse that house keeps for a cat.
Stacks of stories edited by Mary Hoffman: Libraries aren't so bad - here's a collection of stories that all have the library as a theme.
A treasury of funny stories chosen by Andrew Matthews: From a crummy mummy to flying dogs - stories that are giggle-guaranteed.
A treasury of ghost stories chosen by Kenneth Ireland: The dead man who was so ornery he wouldn't believe he was dead, 'ghosts' from the future, and the shortest ghost story ever told.
Martin Waddell, My Aunty Sal and the mega-sized moose: Aunty Sal has got a real nose for trouble, and she always manages to drag Erwin right into the middle of it!

Books to read to older children

Norman Bilbrough, Dog breath and other stories: Sometimes hilarious, sometimes disgusting stories.
Dyan Blacklock, Comet vomit: Short and startling stories ranging from intergalactic environmental police to a giant shark in the local waterhole.
Kevin Crossley-Holland, Short! a book of very short stories: Title says it all - the shortest story is just one sentence long.
Jackie French, Stories to eat with a banana, Stories to eat with a watermelon: Since the refugees started arriving from Ruritania, no one knows who will turn up next. The teacher, Mrs Olsen, is a vampire (with an arrangement with the local abbatoir), and Prudence's new friend is the Phaery Ethereal (otherwise known as Phredde).
Garry Hurle, Sheena's deadly game and other spine-tingling stories: A collection of stories that range from a haunted woolshed to a sinister spinning wheel, from an encounter with a deadly tiger snake to a gold-stealing UFO.
Jack Lasenby, Uncle Trev's teeth: The best of the Uncle Trev stories - tall tales to test everything you ever thought you knew about small-town life in New Zealand.
Jackie Vivelo, Chills in the night: tales that will haunt you: What can be scarier than something that's there when nothing should be? Maybe when something's not there when it should, and something else has taken its place.
Patricia Wrede, Book of enchantments: A sultan with an unending list of curses; a harp made of bones that sings of murder; the Frying Pan of Doom - anything's possible.

See also the booklist Picture this: picture books for older readers