Identity stories

These are the stories a child remembers years later, because the feeling in them is one every child has had: being counted as less than you are.

The Ugly Duckling is the one that named the feeling, adapted here from Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) and running seven minutes for ages three to seven. The Goose Girl is the harder version for six to ten, where a princess is made to work as a servant and nobody will hear her. The Princess Who Wasn’t comes at it from the other end, and The Tale of Tom Thumb makes the whole argument about size.

For a child who feels like the odd one out

My Own Self at ten minutes is the gentlest of them, and it ends with a child naming themselves rather than being named.

The second group is about people pretending, and it is far funnier. Aesop supplies most of it.

The Vain Jackdaw is seven minutes of a bird wearing plumage it did not grow. The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing gives the disguise to somebody dangerous, which is a useful thing for a five-to-eight-year-old to think about. The Fox Without a Tail is four minutes on persuading everyone else to lose what you have lost, and Puss in Boots is a whole story built out of a name somebody invented.

The difference worth drawing out

Some of these characters are hiding and some are performing, and children mix the two up. The wolf hides because he wants something; the jackdaw performs because he wants to be looked at. If an eight-year-old can tell you which is which, they have understood more about people than the moral at the end of either story says.

A third group looks at appearance directly, and these are the ones to have ready when a child first says something unhappy about how they look.

The Stag and His Reflection is five minutes and turns on the difference between the handsome part and the useful part. Riquet With The Tuft and The Peacock and the Fox both argue that a face is not a character. The Light Princess, adapted from George MacDonald, is the odd one out and the cleverest: it is about a girl who cannot feel anything heavy, and about learning that sadness belongs to you too.

Keep The Fir Tree nearby as well. It is five minutes, gentle, and its subject is wanting to be older and bigger than you currently are, which is the version of this question most five-year-olds are really asking.

This is a branch of family, which is where a child’s idea of themselves usually starts, and its closest relation elsewhere on the site is belonging — nine stories about finding your people rather than working out who you are.

And the near-miss theme

Plenty of these stories also appear under pride, because a boast and an identity are easy to confuse. The difference worth pointing out to an older child is that the jackdaw wants to be admired while the duckling only wants to be at home somewhere.

A handful sit in both themes and in friendship as well, which is usually a sign of a good story rather than a filing error. The Crow and the Swan is seven minutes and a fair example: a bird who wants to change what it is, and a friend who would rather it did not. Read it after The Ugly Duckling and the two make an argument together.

If a story here opens a conversation you were not expecting, our guide on how stories teach empathy is the useful one to read afterwards.