Short Stories for Kids - Hard work and Success

Short Story on how hard work and team effort leads to success

Rani lived in a small town called Oddanchatram near the city of Madurai. It was a beautiful town located at the base of the Western Ghats near the Parapalar Dam. Natural beauty was abundant. The town had a large vegetable market called the Gandhi market. It is one of the largest vegetable markets in the state of Tamil Nadu.  

Rani’s family were farmers, they grew and sold vegetables in the market to make a living. When Rani was not studying or in school, she would help her parents out in the garden. They grew many vegetables .Beans, carrots, tomatoes, chillies , okra ( ladies finger) and Drumstick were the chief crops.  There were a few Banana and Mango trees as well. 

Rani had two friends Alamu and Jeevita. The three of them used to play around in the garden and help the family in cutting vegetables, supplying water to the plants and weeding. Rani’s mom also dried some of the chillies in the sun to turn green chillies into red chillies. The children had to turn the chillies over from time to time to ensure even basking in the sun. They also had to ensure the dried chillies were removed from the outdoors if it was raining. 

The family lived a comfortable life. The town’s vegetable market was in full swing between June and December and the market attracted a lot of people from outside. Rani’s parents set up a stall here to sell their produce during this season. 

As it so happened, Rani was 16 and her parents began to worry about money to put her through to college.  While the family lived comfortably, they never made enough to save and take care of future expenses. It was now time to find some way to make more money so that they could afford to send their daughter to college.

One night, thinking that Rani had already slept, her mother and father started discussing how to make more money. They never discussed lack of funds with her, because they didn’t want her to worry about it and wanted her to focus more on her education. But tonight, Rani was awake and she heard the conversation. She was very upset that her parents had not confided about their troubles to her,

The next morning, she went to school as usual and in the evening when they all gathered to have tea. Rani brought up the topic. She said, “ Amma, I heard you and Appa worrying about funding my college education. I have some ideas and I want to discuss them with you.”

Rani’s mother was taken aback at first, but she realised that her daughter was growing up and she needed to understand the family financial situation too.  Rani’s mother told her they could discuss her ideas over supper,

During supper time, Rani brought up the topic again. She had heard at her school that the Government was providing free online courses on how to make tomato ketchup. She would take the course and make some of the tomatoes from the garden into ketchup. Ketchup had better rates than tomatoes and they would be able to make more money . Second thing she wanted to do was to make mango pickle instead of plain mango, so that they could sell it at a higher price. 

Her father agreed to the plan. There was a lot of work ahead for Rani and her family. Rani enrolled in the course and applied her heart and mind to the course. Once the course was over, she decided to make a small batch of ketchup to test if it was ok. The ketchup came out very well.

Rani had an excellent idea and she had made an effort to learn how to make ketchup as well. But, she was stuck with one thing. She did not know how she and her family would find time to make such huge quantities of ketchup and pickles. She was thinking about this and felt very sad that even though, she had a good idea she may not be able to give it life,

That evening she started talking to her friends. Alamu and Jeevitha hear her plan and were amazed at their friend's idea. They offered, “ We will help you Rani. We can do the work after school. We normally just play in your garden. Now we will use the time effectively. We will help you and we can get some time to hand out as well.” Rani was so relieved to hear this.

Thus, the friends started to work hard daily and in a few days time they had enough ketchup and pickles to sell in the market. They did this every month for a few days and soon, the family had enough savings to send Rani to college. She chose to take an undergraduate course in Agriculture at the Madurai Kamaraj University. She visits home every weekend and hangs out with her old friends even today, Rani’s parents are proud and happy to see her continuing her education.

Moral of the Story

While the story is fiction, the town of Oddanchatram is real.Gandhi market is real too. It is most active between June and December and provides livelihood to many village and town folks in the taluk. It is one of the largest vegetable markets in the state of Tamil Nadu. 

This short story is a great way to teach kids that hard work is very important to be successful. It also emphasises on the importance of a friends and how a team can do what individuals cannot.

Why Short Stories?

Short stories are a great way  

  1. To Build empathy in kids

  2. They can help in driving home important life lessons

  3. We recommend this story for kids from 7 years and above

Short stories are great conversation starters. If you like our short stories you are sure to like our maps and flashcards as well. They are great to keep kids away from the screen


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