Ages 9-12
Stories suggested for ages 9–12, with longer journeys, competing motives and difficult choices. Some contain frightening scenes or violence described in the page’s guidance. These age suggestions support selection and discussion; they do not make every traditional story equally suitable for every reader.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Temple to the God of War
When officials cannot agree where to build a shrine to the God of War, a huge stranger in uniform asks to speak with the statesman Yi Hang-bok alone.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Unmannerly Tiger
Tricked by a hunter’s mirror into leaping at his own reflection, a proud old tiger lands in a pit and begs a passing monk to set him free.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Soldier of Kang-wha
To cheer up his sulking wife, a plain village soldier tosses scraps of silk into the air, and the room fills with butterflies of every color.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Resourceful Wife
When the tyrant King Yon-san summons a minister’s beautiful young wife to his palace, she goes without a tear, carrying a secret plan of escape.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Rabbit’s Eyes
When the King of the Fishes swallows a fishhook, the sea doctors decide only a rabbit’s eyes can cure him, and Dr. Turtle is sent ashore to fetch one.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Old Woman Who Became a Goblin
A scholar’s wife takes in an old beggar woman who can spin more than eight women in a day, but the helper grows angry when the welcome cools.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Mirror That Made Trouble
A miller from the countryside visits Seoul for the first time and buys a round metal disc with a man inside, never guessing what it will do to his family.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Old Man Who Became a Fish
A guest bursts into tears at the sight of skate soup and explains how his feverish father, nearly a hundred years old, begged to be carried to the river.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Man Who Became a Pig
A man travels from the far countryside to ask a minister’s advice, because his father, nearly a hundred, shut himself in for a nap and turned into a pig.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Man Who Lost His Legs
A merchant buying seaweed on Quelpart meets a legless old man who tells how his shipwrecked crew was trapped in the castle of a man-eating giant.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Man on the Road
Trapped by an invading army in 1636, a crowd of refugees sits down beside a calm stranger and a strip of cotton cloth as the horsemen thunder past them.
Korean Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Magic Peach
At a feast on the Island of Gems, a young prince eats a peach of long life, and the palace maid kneeling beside him seems to grow lovelier every moment.