Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write about a character passing down their favorite childhood toy to a new generation.

Posted in Adults on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 122 stories

The Dollhouse

Submitted to Contest #61

Lisa loves spending time with her maternal grandmother. Almost all her holidays, be it Fourth of July, Labour Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas, she has spent with her doting grandma. It has always been a long standing Montgomery family tradition to gather at their grandmother's ancestral home for any occasion. She had always loved visiting her grandma Rose for three very important reasons. The first being, she, Lisa, was her favourite granddaughter, and second, she absolutely loved her grandmother's cooking. Especially her double cho...

113 likes 39 comments 39
Read story

A Yearly Tradition

Submitted to Contest #61

I was ten years old when Grandma asked me to hand over my life. I had been crouched under my bed for cover, curling my pudgy knees up to my chest and squeezing my eyes shut as if that would allow me to turn invisible. My breathing stilled as I heard the floorboards creak and yelp under her weight, as if calling a warning for her arrival. I crammed three stuffed animals underneath my pineapple-themed pajama shirt and five more between my legs.I planned this hideaway weeks before that, knowing Grandma would barge into our house demanding for s...

60 likes 52 comments 52
Read story

Garden of Ink

Submitted to Contest #61

Tinsley Everdale only liked things halfway there or halfway done.  That’s why when she was seated at the tattoo parlor, fake ID propped between her thumb and pointer finger, she told the man with green pictures beside his eyes to stop inking.  It was how it appeared in her dream, succulents bent at odd angles with various types of greenery in the background. Half a garden, just like she wanted.  She couldn’t remember exactly, but she thought it was her aunt who exclaimed, “You’ve become a piece of art!” when seeing her fore...

53 likes 25 comments 25
Read story

New/Old Gift

Submitted to Contest #61

New/Old Gift By: Haripriya “Dear Santa...,” the little girl wrote as she was very excited for the holidays.  Christmas was her favorite time of the year. The joy of bells ringing, singing, the love of families coming and visiting each other. Everyone having a bright on their faces. Everything she loved. The little girl also liked to give presents and receive them. This year she wanted a video game set. She was so happy, thinking that she was going to get it. Of course, she always got what she wished every Christ...

45 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

No Teddy Bears in the Wasteland

Submitted to Contest #61

*Author’s Note: “No Teddy Bears in the Wasteland” is a standalone story, set in the same universe as my other Reedsy short-stories, with overlapping characters and events.* “You’re not giving him a knife for his birthday!” “It’s not like it’s a chainsaw. You’re being overprotective.” Even in the dark Keith could feel his wife’s eyes burning a hole in the side of his head, as they lay next to each other in bed. Her silence spoke volumes. “My dad gave me the same knife when I was a kid.” Kelly switched on the bedside lamp, so her husband...

45 likes 29 comments 29
Read story

The Song That Fire Sings

Submitted to Contest #61

There were three times in Prometheus’s life in which he played with fire. The first time was many, many years ago, though time means nothing to the gods. He remembered it well, the stark look on his father’s face, the cold surroundings. “Take this,” his father had said, holding a single flame in his large, callused hands. “Take this, and burn what you can. Take this flame, and use it to cause an inferno.”It had surprised Prometheus, but it was a pleasant surprise, this gift. With what his father held in his hands, he could destroy, but ...

45 likes 19 comments 19
Read story

I’ve Never Hugged A Horse!

Submitted to Contest #61

(Write about a character passing down their favorite childhood toy to a new  generation.) They say looking back is futile.  Whatever is back there cannot be changed, it is too late to alter history or the facts, even on a very personal level, but I know, in my mind, looking back can bring understanding. ~~~~~ Christmas was a few weeks ago.  We, my husband and I, have a sweet and loving  five year old son.  The weeks before Christmas were one continuing, non stop series of lectures.   After putting o...

41 likes 30 comments 30
Read story

Legacies

Submitted to Contest #61

Olivia had been busy since she entered the office at a7am. She had no time for lunch and now that she was on her way home for the day her stomach let her know she was famished.  She turned left on Third Street and pulled into the parking lot of her favorite take out place, The Golden Wok. She loved the fact that she could stop at any number of restaurants in the city at any time and they would be open. She also loved that fact that they delivered!  But not tonight. She was far to hungry to wait for delivery. ...

40 likes 23 comments 23
Read story

the thought that counts

Submitted to Contest #61

I forgot to buy my niece a birthday present. It’s unforgivable, really. There’s absolutely no excuse. Forgetting my nephew’s birthday? Understandable. I see him twice a year at most, and his birthday is in September, the same month as at least four of my closest friends, and I can’t keep track of the days. Go on, ask me when his birthday is. See? I have no idea. My niece, though. I see her all the time. I pick her up from school, because I’m the only one who isn’t at work when school ends, and I can’t let my sister enroll her in an after...

40 likes 18 comments 18
Read story

An Early Present

Submitted to Contest #61

The boy peeks from behind the wall into the kitchen. The smell of chocolate chip waffles had coaxed him from the comfort of his bed, a place he was quite disinclined to depart from on this snowy Saturday morning. He watches quietly as his mother flurries around the kitchen in her usual refined chaos, zipping through cupboards and yanking ingredients from their haphazard placements across the countertops.The boy loves to watch his mother cook. She is a magician and an artist in the kitchen. And in life. “And what are you doing awake, kid...

39 likes 14 comments 14
Read story

Yellow Thing

Submitted to Contest #61

When I was six years old, Mom drove us to the store and told me to pick out a toy.She knelt down in front of me and looked me straight in the eye. “You only get one,” she warned, “so choose carefully.” I already had a small collection of toys at home—a fluffy moose from a giftshop in a faraway national park, a blue-and-green polka-dotted stingray from the aquarium, and a purple bear Grandma gave me long ago. I never liked the plastic ones much, the dolls and the houses and the race cars. They were too awkward to hug.So, holding hands wi...

36 likes 34 comments 34
Read story

Rebecca

Submitted to Contest #61

Her eyes are now a dull, glassy pale blue. No longer the bewitching deep green they once were, making me think on a pair of emeralds glimmering and polished. Her hair, frazzled and dusty. No longer the luminous copper ringlets they once were. But her cheeks are still rosy. Freckled. Beneath the dust with a smear and a bit of spit. Her complexion a dewy pale gleam. There remains, from all the years gone by, those cracks where my grandmother expertly glued her leg back together for me. It was told to me then that pretty dolls are hardly for pl...

35 likes 39 comments 39
Read story

They Talk Back To You

Shortlisted for Contest #61 ⭐️

The Googly Goose talking phone came out in the early eighties, a push button toy that 'dialed ' your favorite Googly Goose characters and piped their recorded voices through a tinny corded handset. Consumer complaints around that era said that the device was prohibitively expensive and the thin wire often broke so you could no longer hear the audio, but dad was obsessed. He took it everywhere when he was a kid. He swears that, unlike other talking phones of that era, it said something different every time. Most people know ...

30 likes 9 comments 9
Read story

Ghost 💀

Submitted to Contest #61

"Whatever." I say to my dad. I never get in trouble for talking back. Why? Because I'm a ghost. Three years ago, I was nineteen, and I saved some kids from a fire, but I died. For some reason, I'm here. I don't know why, but my family could see me. Sometimes I can let other people see me, but not usually. When I was younger, I could see a ghost. I thought he was real, and, that freaked my parents out. My dad ignores me, and turns back to his breakfast. I sigh, and float through the celing to the attic. There's nothing up here, other then d...

30 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Golden Pipe Dream

Submitted to Contest #61

It’s funny how people hold on to things. Somehow a frayed notebook carries memories of carefree days past, while a piece of glass reflects a shattered home. A dusty scarf smells like your favorite roast dinners, while a rusted gold ring reminds you of a cheap love. I guess it’s quite simple, really. Objects that others dismiss mean the world to you; they hold the sentimental values of your whole universe. Sometimes I look at the locket, turn it around until it starts to look like another scar on the palm of my hand. It isn’t rusted. It’...

28 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a character who goes to — or purposefully avoids — their high school reunion.

Adults – 139 stories

Write about a character who smells something familiar and is instantly taken back to the first moment they smelled it.

Short Story – 217 stories

Write about a character discovering something new about their past that changes how they remember an important moment.

Dramatic – 139 stories

Write about a character who’s obsessed with an era they never lived through.

Adults – 100 stories

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel