This article draws on the insights/questions that emerged while putting together a set of stories for children published in a series named "Different Tales." These stories, set in Dalit and other minority communities, problematize the normative grids through which we view "childhood" as they depict the complex ways in which children negotiate and cope with the material conditions of their marginality, often drawing upon the resources and relationships within the community. What follows is a resistance to representing culture as a marker of essentialized difference. (Contains 31 notes.)