A girl comes to grandparents who speak a language she knows only from lullabies.Arrives with: three words. Home when: she dreams in it.
A girl's guardian is a judge who runs the house by fair and written rules.Arrives with: an appeal. Home when: a rule is amended in her handwriting.
A girl is taken in by her mother's best friend, who cannot cook and is honest about it.Arrives with: a recipe box. Home when: they burn the first one together.
A boy comes to live above his uncle's bakery, where the day begins at four.Arrives with: a habit of sleeping late. Home when: he wakes before the alarm.
A boy is collected by an aunt who drives a mobile library and lives in it all summer.Arrives with: an overdue book. Home when: he is given a shelf to run.
A boy is sent to a grandmother who runs a seaside guest house with one room always kept free.Arrives with: a deck of cards. Home when: the room gets his name on the door.
A boy is taken in by a great-uncle who restores clocks and cannot bear noise.Arrives with: a drum. Home when: he is asked to keep time for the shop.
A boy joins an aunt and uncle who have a new baby and are too tired to be polite.Arrives with: a wish not to be a bother. Home when: he is handed the baby mid-sentence.
A boy joins the household of an older sister he has met twice.Arrives with: their father's pancake recipe. Home when: she asks him to make them.
A boy lands with an aunt who is a traveling piano tuner and takes him on her rounds.Arrives with: perfect pitch nobody had noticed. Home when: she hands him the tuning fork.
A boy moves in with a grandmother who has taken up skateboarding and needs a spotter.Arrives with: a helmet. Home when: she borrows it.
A boy moves in with his grandfather, a retired ferryman who talks only about tides.Arrives with: a tide table he cannot read. Home when: he corrects the old man's arithmetic.
A girl comes to grandparents who speak a language she knows only from lullabies.Arrives with: three words. Home when: she dreams in it.
A girl goes to a farm cousin's family of seven, where nobody has time to explain anything.Arrives with: city shoes. Home when: a chore is handed to her without a word, like the others.
A girl goes to an uncle who keeps a small-town museum of one room.Arrives with: a shoebox of her own things. Home when: he gives them a case and a label.
A girl goes to live on her aunt's houseboat, where everything has exactly one place.Arrives with: too many shoes. Home when: a hook is screwed in at her height.
A girl is sent to a great-grandmother who is a hundred and wants someone to argue with.Arrives with: opinions. Home when: she loses an argument and enjoys it.
A girl is sent to live with a great-aunt who keeps bees and has never once looked after a child.Arrives with: a suitcase and a list of things she will not eat. Home when: she is trusted with the smoker.
A girl is taken in by a grandfather who writes crossword puzzles and speaks in clues.Arrives with: silence. Home when: she finds her name hidden in Sunday's grid.
A girl lands with a cousin only six years older, who has just started her first job.Arrives with: a houseplant. Home when: the cousin asks her advice and takes it.
A girl moves in with an uncle who guides tours of a castle and tells the same jokes forty times a week.Arrives with: a notebook. Home when: he uses her new joke on the tour.
Twins are sent to two aunts who live next door to each other and have not spoken in years.Arrives with: a secret knock. Home when: both aunts turn up at the same school play.
Two brothers go to an uncle who owns a failing bicycle shop and one spare bed.Arrives with: one bike between them. Home when: the shop sign gets two more names.
With a guardian who is no relation 20
A boy goes to a couple who make puppets, in a house where every shelf is watching.Arrives with: one odd sock. Home when: it gets eyes and a part in the show.
A boy goes to a weaver and a cellist whose house clacks and hums.Arrives with: earplugs. Home when: he taps a third part on the table.
A boy goes to two brothers who run a junkyard and can fix anything except breakfast.Arrives with: a broken radio. Home when: it plays, and he makes the toast.
A boy is placed with a retired sea captain who has never lived anywhere that did not move.Arrives with: a dislike of boats. Home when: they hang a hammock in the hall, for the captain.
A boy is taken in by an astronomer whose house is dark by rule after nine.Arrives with: a night light. Home when: he is shown what the dark is for.
A boy is taken in by the keeper of a canal lock, and the front yard is water.Arrives with: a model boat. Home when: he is allowed to work the gates.
A boy moves in with a schoolteacher and must call her one thing at home and another in class.Arrives with: a nickname for her. Home when: he uses it in class by mistake, and she answers.
A boy's guardian is his father's old teammate, who still coaches and has no idea about homework.Arrives with: no interest in sports. Home when: he keeps the score book.
A boy's guardian is the caretaker of a village hall, and their rooms are above the stage.Arrives with: stage fright. Home when: he pulls the curtain on opening night.
A boy's new guardian is the town vet, whose house is full of animals nobody collected.Arrives with: a fear of dogs. Home when: the oldest dog chooses his bed.
A girl goes to a godmother she knows only from birthday cards with the wrong age on them.Arrives with: every card, saved. Home when: this year's card is right.
A girl is placed with a night baker and a day nurse who meet only at the kitchen table.Arrives with: a wish for one family supper. Home when: breakfast at six becomes it.
A girl is placed with a woman who trains guide dogs and gives every puppy away.Arrives with: a rule against getting attached. Home when: she is told that some stay.
A girl is taken in by her mother's best friend, who cannot cook and is honest about it.Arrives with: a recipe box. Home when: they burn the first one together.
A girl moves in with a potter whose house has no two cups alike.Arrives with: her own chipped mug. Home when: it has a place on the shelf, chip facing out.
A girl moves in with her parents' business partner, who has kept the shop exactly as they left it.Arrives with: ideas. Home when: she is allowed to move one shelf.
A girl's guardian drives a city bus and takes her along on the late route when no sitter can be found.Arrives with: homework. Home when: the regulars save her a seat.
A girl's guardian is a judge who runs the house by fair and written rules.Arrives with: an appeal. Home when: a rule is amended in her handwriting.
A girl's guardian is a quiet tailor who measures everything twice.Arrives with: a coat too small. Home when: the hem has been let down, with room to grow.
A girl's guardian turns out to be her parents' old landlady, who has kept their first rent receipt.Arrives with: the key to a flat that is no longer theirs. Home when: she is shown the receipt drawer.
At a children's home or a school 20
A boy arrives at a home during its yearly play and is given the part nobody wanted.Arrives with: no lines. Home when: the audience laughs where he meant them to.
A boy at a choir school cannot sing a note and is kept on to turn the organist's pages.Arrives with: a good ear. Home when: the organist stops and waits for him.
A boy at a home with a famous football team is the only one who would sooner draw.Arrives with: pencils. Home when: his drawing of the team goes up in the hall.
A boy is sure the housemother dislikes him, because she alone never fusses over him.Arrives with: a guard up. Home when: he finds she has kept every one of his school notes.
A boy is the first new arrival in a year at a home with a long table and one empty chair.Arrives with: a wish to be invisible. Home when: the chair has his cushion on it.
A boy joins a home on a hill where every child has a job with the hens.Arrives with: a fear of birds. Home when: one hen will lay only for him.
A boy keeps a list of the homes he has lived in and expects this one to be a short line.Arrives with: the list. Home when: he runs out of room under its name.
A boy runs the home's lost property box and knows what everyone is missing.Arrives with: one glove. Home when: its pair is handed in.
A girl arrives at a children's home where the cook lets each newcomer choose Friday's supper.Arrives with: no appetite. Home when: she asks for seconds of someone else's choice.
A girl at a boarding school spends the holidays with the gardener's family.Arrives with: an empty timetable. Home when: she is given a row of the kitchen garden.
A girl at a mountain school stays on for the winter term with one teacher and three other pupils.Arrives with: a book for one. Home when: she reads it aloud.
A girl at a school for the children of sailors has no ship to wait for.Arrives with: a spyglass. Home when: she is the first to spot someone else's.
A girl comes to a home that has just moved into an old hotel, room numbers and all.Arrives with: a suitcase she will not unpack. Home when: she changes the number on her door to a name.
A girl discovers the home keeps a birthday book, and hers is the only page with a question mark.Arrives with: no known date. Home when: the others vote her one.
A girl in a home above a railway line learns to sleep through everything but the 5:10.Arrives with: a habit of waking early. Home when: the cook hands her the second cup.
A girl is taken to a school by the sea where the matron teaches everyone to swim before anything else.Arrives with: a dry swimsuit. Home when: she is the one holding a newcomer's hands.
A girl is the oldest at a small home and is tired of being asked to set an example.Arrives with: a plan to be difficult. Home when: the little ones copy even that.
A girl learns that the home's oldest tradition is a quilt with a square from every child.Arrives with: nothing she wants to cut up. Home when: she stitches in a pocket.
Each child at a home is allowed one shelf, and a new boy leaves his bare.Arrives with: everything still in his bag. Home when: a borrowed book stands on it.
Two children who arrive at a home on the same day agree to pretend they are cousins.Arrives with: a made-up family tree. Home when: the others ask to be added.
With a found family 20
A boy becomes the mascot of a fire station, in charge of polishing the bell.Arrives with: a helmet too big for him. Home when: a hook with his name goes up beside theirs.
A boy carries bags for a station porter who knows every traveler by name.Arrives with: no name he likes. Home when: the porter's nickname for him sticks.
A boy helps an old mapmaker who is drawing a town that changes faster than she can ink it.Arrives with: quick feet. Home when: his street is drawn in, with his name on it.
A boy helps at a market every Saturday and is adopted, stall by stall.Arrives with: empty pockets. Home when: he is trusted with the change tin.
A boy is boarded with three students who cannot keep a plant alive.Arrives with: a green thumb. Home when: they ask him before they water anything.
A boy is taken under the wing of a retired clown who teaches falling down as a serious subject.Arrives with: a straight face. Home when: he falls on purpose and gets the laugh.
A boy joins a lighthouse family of nine as the tenth at the table.Arrives with: a fear that he eats too much. Home when: someone steals a potato off his plate.
A boy lives at a lodging house for musicians, and each lodger teaches him a different instrument.Arrives with: a comb and paper. Home when: they write him a part.
A boy sweeps up for a traveling theater company, and nobody asks when he plans to leave.Arrives with: a broom. Home when: his name is painted on a costume trunk.
A girl finds that the cook at a railway cafe has been keeping the window table for her.Arrives with: homework. Home when: a sandwich on the board has her name.
A girl helps a kite maker test designs and is paid in kites.Arrives with: a ball of string. Home when: one is built to her drawing.
A girl is kept busy in a workroom of six seamstresses who all give different advice.Arrives with: a torn hem. Home when: she ignores all six, and they approve.
A girl is looked after by the three old women who run a village telephone exchange.Arrives with: a quiet voice. Home when: she is allowed to say number, please.
A girl is taken on by the crew of a river mail boat with eleven docks to call at.Arrives with: no sea legs. Home when: the dog on the third dock barks for her.
A girl is taken up by a row of retired actors who rehearse over their garden fences.Arrives with: a whisper. Home when: she is given the last line.
A girl joins a community garden where the youngest member before her was sixty.Arrives with: a packet of seeds. Home when: her row is watered while she is at school.
A girl rides along with a milkman each dawn before school.Arrives with: cold hands. Home when: the horse stops at her door first.
A girl spends every afternoon in a bookshop until the owner gives her a stool and a job.Arrives with: a library card. Home when: she is left the keys for ten minutes.
A girl spends summers with the families of a fishing fleet, passed from kitchen to kitchen.Arrives with: one recipe. Home when: three kitchens claim to have taught it to her.
A whole street of neighbors takes turns giving a boy his supper.Arrives with: an appetite. Home when: the street argues over whose night it is.
A letter that arrives late 20
A boy at a children's home gets a letter meant for a boy of the same name who left years ago.It says: come for the summer. Home when: he writes back the truth, and is invited anyway.
A boy finds a note his father taped under a bicycle seat years ago, for whoever learned to ride it next.It says: lean into the turn. Home when: his guardian runs behind, holding the seat.
A boy finds a note in his coat lining, sewn there by his mother for the day the coat wore thin.It says: time for a new coat. Home when: his uncle takes him to choose it.
A boy finds a sealed envelope marked for a rainy day and waits weeks for rain.It says: a list of indoor games. Home when: his new family plays the fourth one.
A boy is handed a box of letters his mother wrote to her sister about him, one a month.It says: all he did before he could remember. Home when: his aunt starts writing the next one.
A boy is handed his mother's unfinished jigsaw, kept in its box by a neighbor, with a note on the lid.It says: the sky is the hard part. Home when: the whole house is doing the sky.
A boy is sent a tape of bedtime stories his father recorded, found in a neighbor's attic.It says: three stories with all the voices. Home when: his guardian learns the bear's.
A boy receives a seed order his mother placed, delivered to the wrong town for two springs.It says: sow after the last frost. Home when: his guardian digs the bed beside him.
A girl finds a note in her mother's cookbook that begins: when you are tall enough for the stove.It says: how to make the Sunday soup. Home when: her uncle tastes it and asks for more.
A girl finds her name in the dedication of a book her father wrote and never mentioned.It says: for the one who asks why. Home when: her guardian reads her a chapter a night.
A girl gets a late letter from the captain of the ship her parents once worked on.It says: there is a cabin with their names carved in it. Home when: her guardian books the crossing.
A girl is given a map her parents drew of the town she now lives in, as it was when they were children.It says: best climbing tree, marked with a star. Home when: she adds a star of her own.
A girl is sent her mother's old school report by the teacher who kept it.It says: talks too much, and is usually right. Home when: her guardian says that explains a lot.
A girl opens a trunk kept in storage for her, packed by parents who labeled everything.It says, on one label: for your own room. Home when: she hangs the curtains.
A girl receives a parcel her grandfather ordered for her long ago: a telescope with no instructions.It says: only her name. Home when: the neighbor who knows the sky knocks.
A letter for a boy arrives at the children's home in handwriting nobody can read.It says: something, as each child offers a guess. Home when: the guesses are better than any letter.
A letter has waited at a village post office for a child of a girl's name to claim it.It says: who her parents' friends were. Home when: three of them come to tea.
A letter reaches a boy from a pen pal his father never told about the move.It says: your turn, with a chess move. Home when: he and his grandmother work out the reply.
A letter written for a girl's tenth birthday reaches her at twelve, forwarded through four addresses.It says: be brave about the piano exam. Home when: she reads it to her aunt, and they both laugh.
A postcard from a trip a girl's parents once took reaches her new address a year after it was mailed.It says: wish you were here, and one joke. Home when: she pins it up in the kitchen, not her room.
How it works
These 100 orphan short story ideas start once a child has landed somewhere new. The line under each says what they arrive with, or what a late letter says, and the moment the place becomes home.
Read the full guide
A story idea about an orphan, by where the child lands
With a relative they barely know, the story is two strangers who happen to be family. A guardian who is no relation has a house with rules of its own. A children's home or a school supplies a crowd, and a found family gathers one person at a time. In A letter that arrives late, a note, a parcel or a letter turns up long after it was written.
Orphan story ideas in the storybook tradition
No premise shows or describes the loss, and none turns on a child in danger or an unkind adult. The trouble is small and can be mended: a drum in a clock restorer's quiet house, too many shoes on a houseboat.
Start on the doorstep. What the child carries in tells the reader what they expect.
Let the grown-up be the one who has something to learn.
Questions and answers
What are some orphan story ideas?
Begin with who opens the door. On this list a girl is sent to a great-aunt who keeps bees and has never looked after a child, and two brothers go to an uncle with a failing bicycle shop and one spare bed.
How do you write a short story about an orphan?
Write the arrival and leave the loss off the page. Choose what the child brings, one misunderstanding with the new household, and the small moment the place becomes home: a hook screwed in at her height, a name painted on a costume trunk.
What is a found family in a story?
Found family, also called chosen family, means bonds between people who are not related, formed on purpose and by choice. In the group With a found family, a whole street takes turns giving a boy his supper, then argues over whose night it is.