Theme: The Lesson Beneath the Story

Identify a story's theme, the big message about life that the author wants you to understand.

The theme of a story is its big message or lesson about life. It is different from the topic. The topic is what the story is about in a word or two, like friendship. The theme is what the story says about that topic, like 'True friends stick together in hard times. ' Themes are usually not stated; you infer them from what the main character learns and how the problem is solved.

Here is a story: 'Kai teased the new boy for his old shoes. Later, Kai's own shoes broke on a field trip, and the new boy lent him his spare pair. ' Kai learns that kindness matters more than appearances. A possible theme is: treat others with kindness, no matter how they look.

• 1Theme = the story's message about life.
• 2Topic is a word; theme is a full sentence about it.
• 3Look at what the main character learns.