Clara in the City

This is an original, children’s story written and illustrated by Alex Inglewood,
with help from GPT-3 and Stable Diffusion.

For ages 5-8

Estimated reading time: 5-10 minutes

Clara in the City

A young girl named Clara lived in an enchanting city where people lived in harmony with the forest. The buildings grew tall next to even taller trees, and every day Clara would sit and admire them from her bedroom window. 

One day, when her father was away, Clara decided to sneak out of her house to better see the trees, admiring the many sights and sounds that filled the streets. People chatted excitedly as they walked wearing strange clothing, shops were filled with wondrous things for sale and the smell of delicious food wafted through the air.

After several minutes of walking, Clara came to a large tree in the center of the city. The tree was so big that she could barely see the top of its high branches. She climbed the tree and found herself surrounded with colorful birds and butterflies, and the girl felt like she was in a dream.

Suddenly, a gust of wind came and blew Clara away, where she landed with a loud THUMP! Shaken, she stood and found herself in a dark and scary part of the city. She was surrounded by tall buildings that blocked out the sun. There were no trees or birds, and the only sound was the sound of strange machinery and the woosh of steam. Clara was scared and didn’t know what to do. A sudden loud clang of metal surprised her. With a start, she ran and ran down many streets full of tangled pipes and wires, until she saw a bright light at the end of an alley and cautiously walked towards it. 

As she got closer, she realized that the light was coming from a bright plaza. As she walked through the bright but quiet park, she saw a woman riding a horse. She went up to the woman, telling her she was lost and needed help finding her way home. The woman was very kind, and offered to give Clara a ride back home on her horse. The dark streets full of shadows and strange machines were not as scary when she passed through them with her new friends.

Eventually, they came home and Clara’s father was relieved and happy to see her return safely, and thanked the woman and her horse profusely. Clara told her father all about her adventure, and how she had gotten lost in the city. Her father was very proud of her for finding her way home safely, and they both agreed that it was a good lesson learned.

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The artistic style of the Stable Diffusion images were influenced by the art of Makoto Shinkai.

You can also learn more about why we use AIs to make free kids stories in our dedicated post about it.