Safe Return Doubtful

A dissentient opinion came from the aunt. ‘A most improper story to tell young children! You have undermined the effect of years of careful teaching.’ ‘At any rate,’ said the bachelor, collecting his belongings preparatory to leaving the carriage, ‘I kept them quiet for ten minutes, which was more than you were able to do’.

HH Munro, whose pen name was Saki, was an Edwardian writer who specialised in fierce and nasty little satires that poked fun at pretentiousness and social convention.

Saki’s stories are out of copyright now and many are available free on the internet, but one appreciates being guided to his best, especially if the reader is experiencing him for the first time.

These are generally about 4 pages long, and take 10-15 minutes to read, and have a general theme to them, that in the strict Edwardian era when a child’s place was to be seen and not heard, the tables are turned: instead they wreak havoc on cruel aunts, tiresome guests are driven away shaking their heads in despair, or made victims of wily practical jokes, and those staid in their ways get their comeuppance.

He writes with a dark humour, but the emphasis is in humour more than the dark.
They would be ideal to be read out loud to older children, 10 years old plus range.

Mind you, one always has time to be read out loud to, and these fit the bill perfectly for any age.

We’ve lost Baby,’ she screamed. ‘Do you mean that it’s dead, or stampeded, or that you staked it at cards and lost it that way?’ asked Clovis lazily. ‘He was toddling about quite happily on the lawn,’ said Mrs Momeby tearfully, ‘ and Arnold had just come in, and I was asking him what sort of sauce he would like with the asparagus-‘ ‘I hope he said hollandaise,’ interrupted Clovis, with a show of quickened interest, ‘because if there’s anything I hate-‘