Recommendations for book of short stories?

[minotaur]

My 10 year-old DS's descriptive writing is developing beautifully, but he hasn't yet grasped how to structure his stories effectively. They tend to be very long, and a little random.

As he normally reads chapter-books, which don't serve as good examples for the stories he writes in class, I was thinking it might help if I bought him some books of short stories instead. Any recommendations? He likes fantasy books best (e.g. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, Fighting Fantasy).

Oh, and he likes thrillers too, like the Young Bond series.

Not fantasy but Kipling's Just So Stories might be an idea.

Asimov did several volumes of short stories. Mainly, it is true, about Robots.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm really surprised I haven't had more though. Is there a gap in the children's fiction market, or is everyone just on holiday? Given that kids are regularly asked to write short stories at school, I'd have thought it would be an obvious thing for schools to encourage them to read (I suspect my DC's stories are so long and rambling because in his head he's writing a novel!).

I found these two on Amazon, which looked interesting and had good reviews, so I will give them a try too:

Under the Weather: Stories about Climate Change, edited by Tony Bradman

Unexpected Magic: Collected stories by Diana Wynne Jones

Roald Dahl

P g wodehouse

Paul Jennings
Brilliant bizarre stories!

If he likes Young Bond, DS has just got "The Danger Society- the young Bond dossier"
It's full of info on the series but interestingly, there is a short Young Bond story in the front. I say interesting as it is a familiar theme but in a compact form which may give him some pointers as to how to condense his work effectively.

Great, thanks. Keep them coming!

You'd get more responses if you started a thread on Childrens Fiction.

If I remember correctly Tolkien write some short stories, the title 'Tales from the perilous realm' springs to mind. May be worth looking in to.

The Strangeling's Tale on Smashwords, or there's an Amazon edition
Great reviews, a good blend of adventure and fantasy in several stand-alone short stories that link together.

We used to have a Puffin Book of Stories for 6 year olds which is the nearest to essay length I've seen;they go up to age 9 on Amazon.
In Waterstones today and spotted:
Of Lions and Unicorns, A Lifetime of Tales - 25 short stories by Michael Morpurgo.
The Great Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - 8 stories of 30-40 pages long.
If he likes Harry Potter then there's J.K.Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard which I remember not buying a couple of years ago although I can't recall why!

The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan. Collection for children of fantastic imaginative pieces.

Short! By Kevin Crossley-Holland. These are about the length a child might write in 40 mins in school.

Oxford and Heinemann do lots of themed collections such as Stories From Around The World, Ghost Stories etc etc