The serial reading of a novel over several weeks can be one of the most rewarding experiences in teaching. But there are times that cry out for a fully resolved story delivered in the space of a single reading. Short stories serve that purpose well. But which ones?

It is surprising that there are not more children’s authors known principally for their short stories, for the form is so naturally attuned to a young audience, and is also the one in which children make their own first attempts at writing fiction. But Paul Jennings is almost unique in recent years in building a fan base on the strength of his collections of stories. There cannot be many teachers who do not own one or more Jennings collections, ragged and dog-eared through repeated handling and failure to find satisfactory alternatives.

Key stage 1 class teachers need never be short of stories that can be read and appreciated in a single sitting. Picture books and brief chapter books provide a wealth of material. For teachers of older children, the situation is somewhat different beyond retellings of myths and legends.

Picture books aimed at the eight-plus audience are not made for reading aloud - illustrations and layout are too integral to their full enjoyment.

Some novels lend themselves to single-reading extracts, teaser set-pieces to entice further investigation. But to choose such extracts you have to know the books.

For all these reasons the recommendations here are principally for key stages 2 and 3. The stories mentioned may take a bit of tracking down, but although story collections tend to have a short shelf-life in bookshops, the reverse is true in libraries.

“The Star”, in Alan Durant’s brilliant collection of short teenage fiction, A Short Stay In Purgatory (Red Fox pound;3.99), is a wonderful example of a story that focuses on the power of a simple object (in this case a Christmas decoration) to become an emblem of hope in a world of despair.

The stories in David Almond’s collection Counting Stars (Hodder Children’s Books pound;5.99) - a Dubliners of north-east England - merges memory and dream, as all his work does. His new story, “The Built-up Sole” (published separately in a World Book Day collection, Where Your Wings Were, which you might have been lucky enough to pick up for pound;1) is a horribly real exploration of the violent victimisation of a clump-footed barber.

Teachers who know their classes well and have established good habits of discussion and debate, could use this story to investigate attitudes towards matters as diverse as disability and fashion.

One of the prose extracts I always enjoy reading to a class is Ray Bradbury’s description in his wonderfuly evocative novel about a 12-year-old boy, Dandelion Wine (Simon amp; Schuster pound;5.99). It describes the thrill of wearing summer sneakers and reminds me of my own childhood summers in that era when plimsolls were whitened every week. And any teacher looking for a sea monster story should look no further than Bradbury’s classic and haunting tale, “The Fog Horn”, one of those stories that emphatically does not require follow-up discussion.

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a master short story writer, and I keep on hand Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories (Harper Collins pound;6.95) with its tales of the wise old fools of Chelm, in case I’m ever required to come up with a morally instructive story at short notice. My favourite is “Fool’s Paradise”, in which a boy pretends to be dead and has his joke taken seriously.

For some really short nonsense, try Christmas At Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong’s by Russell Hoban, a story first published in The TES but also collected in Quentin Blake’s The Puffin Book of Nonsense Stories (Puffin pound;5.99).

And if a short, short story is needed, look no further than Short! by Kevin Crossley-Holland (Oxford University Press pound;4.99), in which most tales are little more than a page long, and one is comprised of a single, three-line sentence. Oxford has three more Short! collections lined up for September, edited by Louise Cooper, Maggie Pearson and Michael Rosen.

Throughout her long career, Joan Aiken has published almost as much short fiction as longer novels, and she is a marvellous short-story writer. Read “The Cat-Flap and the Apple Pie” - originally from Up the Chimney Down but more recently collected in A Handful of Gold (Red Fox pound;3.99) - a mad family interlude in which a mother and her son turn themselves into trees. Tell anyone who enjoys it not only to find more Aiken stories but also to try some Hilary McKay, whose novels have the same quickfire domestic dialogue and strongly comic characterisation.

For alternatives to Paul Jennings, try these two Australians: Moya Simons’

Dead Funny! and Dead Worried! (Orchard Books pound;3.99 each) and Andy Griffiths’ Just Annoying! and Just Kidding! (Macmillan Children’s Books pound;3.99 each). Meanwhile, Jennings’ next collection is Tongue-Tied, coming from Puffin in July.

Most short stories for young readers come in anthologies compiled by editors. Two names to look out for are Dennis Pepper and Miriam Hodgson. Pepper’s territory is the ghostly and the macabre. He has edited a number of very good anthologies for Oxford University Press, notably The New Young Oxford Book of Ghost Stories (pound;6.99) and, recently in paperback, Alien Stories 1 (pound;4.99). This is mainly The Young Oxford Book of Aliens with a new jacket. One of two newly included stories, “The Large Ant” by Howard Fast, is a poignant story about our reactions to the large and the unknown.

Miriam Hodgson, an editor who spent many years nurturing authors on the old Mammoth list, from time to time commissions sets of original stories around a theme. One of the best of these is Mixed Feelings: Stories of Mothers and Daughters (Mammoth pound;4.50), containing short fiction by, among others, Anne Fine, Jacqueline Wilson and Jamila Gavin.

William Mayne’s The Fairy Tales of London Town (Hodder Children’s Books, in two volumes, pound;4.99 each), is a treasure trove of short fiction and verse set in London and deserves a place in any teacher’s home library. Shelve it next to Walter de la Mare’s Come Hither.

Finally, Bambert’s Book of Missing Stories by Reinhardt Jung (Egmont pound;4.99), published posthumously in an English translation, is intended to be read as a novel, but its self-contained stories could also be read aloud as examples of modern fables.

Michael Thorn is deputy head of Hawkes Farm primary school, Hailsham, East Sussex