Kinderseele ("child-soul") is a short story written by Hermann Hesse.

At that time Hesse lived in Bern, Switzerland, where he emigrated to after he had lost his father in 1916, and while his wife and one of his three sons had fallen seriously ill.

Kinderseele was published in November 1919 in Die deutsche Rundschau under the pen name Emil Sinclair.

One day Emil Sinclair, an eleven-year-old boy, returns from school and as nobody is at home he goes upstairs into his father's room where he steals sugared and dried figs out of his dad's chest of drawers.

Hesse himself made a comment on his book in a letter to his sister Adele, in which he stated that the way described in Kinderseele was one of extremely straight psychology and love of truth.