Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a 2005 anthology of short stories edited by David Sedaris.

Sedaris published this book in order to support 826NYC, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center in Brooklyn, New York. All of his proceeds, after permission expenses, from Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules will benefit this organization designed to help students ages six to eighteen develop their writing skills through free writing workshops, publishing projects, and one-on-one help with homework and English-language learning. In the book's epilogue, Sarah Vowell describes 826NYC's work.

The book's title references a painting by Adriaen van der Werff.

Contents

 * Introduction by David Sedaris
 * "Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired" by Richard Yates
 * "Gryphon" by Charles Baxter
 * "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
 * "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield
 * "Half A Grapefruit" by Alice Munro
 * "Applause, Applause" by Jean Thompson
 * "I Know What I'm Doing About All the Attention I've Been Getting" by Frank Gannon
 * "Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out" by Patricia Highsmith
 * "The Best of Betty" by Jincy Willett
 * "Song of the Shirt, 1941" by Dorothy Parker
 * "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" by Joyce Carol Oates
 * "People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk" by Lorrie Moore
 * "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor
 * "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel
 * "Cosmopolitan" by Akhil Sharma
 * "Irish Girl" by Tim Johnston
 * "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff
 * Epilogue by Sarah Vowell