ShopEvery story has more than one side.
Short stories for teens about friendship, family, feelings and choices.
A sentence you would rather take back. A promise that is suddenly hard to keep. A decision with no easy right or wrong.
Here you meet people who make mistakes, take responsibility and sometimes have no idea what to do next.
Read a story. Discover different points of view. And decide for yourself what you make of it.
Which story would you like to read?
Family & Expectations · Nora · 2 min readThe jacket
Nora's father spent twenty years building his own business. One day, at the kitchen table, he asks her a question he thinks he already knows the answer to. Nora says a single word: “Maybe.” What sounds like hope to him feels very different to her.
Read the story →
Friendship & Promises · Nora · 2 min readTwo places at once
Saturday, three o'clock. Nora promised her grandmother they would bake apple cake. She promised her best friend the same hour. Both need her. Both count on her. How do you keep a promise when you have made two?
Read the story →
Money & Honesty · Nora · 2 min readThe coat
Nora worked four Saturdays for it. Then the coat was hers. Only life in it does not feel like the video that made her buy it. When her little brother finds it, he asks a simple question. And Nora has to decide whether to answer honestly.
Read the story →One story. Several points of view.
What is obvious to one person can look completely different to someone else. That is why an ELSEWISE story does not end with the last sentence: under each one you find two points of view on the same situation.
Maybe you understand both sides. Maybe only one. Maybe you think of an option nobody considered. There is no model answer here.
Meet the people behind the stories.
Nora is seventeen, has a mind of her own and sometimes says yes faster than she would like. Alex is eighteen, prefers to think first and has a special talent for wanting to solve problems that may not need solving.
The two have known each other since the first day of school and are a couple and best friends. They still surprise each other. And they will not stay the only people whose stories ELSEWISE tells.
Meet the charactersSome questions stay longer than a story.
Do you always have to be honest, even when the truth disappoints someone? How much responsibility do you carry for other people's expectations? And why do we sometimes want things that do not suit us at all?
ELSEWISE has six topics for questions like these: friendship, family, feelings, money, the future and values, each with a story, a few thoughts and a question to take with you.
Explore the topicsNot every story needs a lesson.
Sometimes a conversation changes everything. Sometimes it changes nothing at first. Not every decision is clear, not every person acts sensibly, and not every story needs someone at the end explaining what would have been right. We tell stories because people are interesting. With their strengths, their mistakes and everything in between.
Stay curious. Keep your own point of view.