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10 Short Bedtime Stories For Kids To Read Aloud Every Day

10 Short Bedtime Stories For Kids To Read Aloud Every Day

31 May 2023 | 10 min Read

Sudeshna Chakravarti

Author | 799 Articles

Did you know that there are several benefits of reading bedtime stories to kids? Reading aloud at night stimulates your child’s imagination and creative thinking, and also enhances their listening and language skills. There are many interesting bedtime stories for kids that you can introduce your munchkin to. Most of these stories carry distinct morals that help instill essential values in your child and teach them some meaningful life lessons.

In this post, we bring you a collection of great bedtime stories for kids that you can read to them at nighttime. Read on to know what they are.

How To Choose The Right Bedtime Stories For Kids?

Here are some factors you should consider while choosing a suitable bedtime story for your little one.

Theme: Make sure that the story’s theme will engage your child. From funny, lighthearted stories, to dreamy adventures, you can pick stories that suit your little one’s preference.
Imagination: Choose stories with interesting plots to stimulate your munchkin’s imagination. This will help build your child’s visualisation and creative skills.
Values: Include moral stories so your little one absorbs the principles as life lessons.
Language: The story should be easy to understand and not written in difficult language. It should have simple words and concepts to help your little one grasp the meaning easily.

10 Best Bedtime Stories For Kids

The Going To Bed Book By Sandra Boynton

This book teaches your kids healthy habits / Image credit: Amazon

This book is a simple narrative of what kids should do after nightfall. The book also has colourful illustrations and is a great tool to teach your little ones healthy habits.

Summary:

The sun has just set, and evening has just begun. All the animals on the ship head downstairs to the deck to take a bath, brush their teeth, change into their pyjamas, exercise, and stretch their bodies, before heading to their bunkers to sleep.

The animals fall asleep immediately as the ship is rocked by the soothing waves of the sea.

Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book By Julia Donaldson

This storybook has vivid illustrations that your child will love / Image credit: Amazon

Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book is a popular bedtime story for kids that talks about the characters reading their favourite books one by one.

Summary:

Charlie Cook is sitting in his chair and reading is favourite book, which is about a stranded pirate chef, who finds a treasure chest. The cook uses tools to open the chest and finds his favourite book inside, about Goldilocks and The Three Bears.

The three bears then find Goldilocks in Baby Bear’s bed reading his favourite book, about Percy Pilkinton, a knight, who later finds his favourite book while fighting a dragon.

And so the story continues until they learn about a boy called Charlie Cook who sits in his favourite armchair to read his favourite book!

Is It Bedtime Wibbly Pig By Mick Inkpen

This book is arranged in a question-and-answer format / Image credit: Amazon

This book is written in a question-and-answer format, where the writer asks Wibbly Pig whether it’s already time for bed. Wibby Pig says, “No, I am still in the bath.” Then the narrator asks Wibbly if they have finished their bath, and gets a reply, “No, I am drying my toes.”

That’s how the story continues, with the narrator asking questions about bedtime, and each time Wibbly comes up with an excuse. The short story ends with Wibbly finally falling asleep with her cuddle buds Dimple the teddy bear and Flop the bunny.

Harold And The Purple Crayon By Crockett Johnson

This book is ideal for stimulating your child’s creativity and imagination / Image credit: Amazon

What exactly can you do with a piece of crayon? Add your imagination, and there’s actually no limit to what you can do. This book narrates the adventures of Harold and what he does with his purple crayon.

Summary:

It is nighttime, but little Harold is still not sleepy. He decides to take a walk, but there is no moon in the sky. He uses his purple crayon to draw the moon and a straight path and starts walking.

Mid-way, Harold cuts through the road into a farmland, and then to the woods. In the woods, he draws an apple tree and a monster to guard the tree. But the monster is scary and Harold runs away, only to find himself in the ocean.

His adventure continues and he uses his purple crayon to draw islands, a boat, a mountain, a city with tall buildings, and then finally his bed, where he falls asleep.

Guess How Much I Love You By Sam Mc. Bratney

This tale is about a dad rabbit and a baby rabbit comparing their love for each other / Image credit: Amazon

This short story features a dad rabbit and a baby rabbit who measure their love for each other. It is a timeless tale that teaches young kids ways to express their feeling of affection and love.

Summary:

Little Nutbrown and his dad Big Nutbrown are in the woods, when the young one says, “Guess how much I love you?” The father says he can’t guess and Little Nutbrown stretches his arms and says, “This Much!”

The father responds by extending his long arms and saying, “But I love you this much!” Both continue their conversation by talking about how much they love each other and finally Little Nutbrown falls asleep by saying, “I love you to the moon” and his father kisses him goodnight by saying, “I love you to the moon and back.”

Mother Bruce By Ryan T. Higgins

This book is about a bear who likes nothing but eggs / Image credit: Amazon

Bears are cute, lovely, and cuddly. But Bruce the bear is anything but cuddly. This book is one among the Bruce series of bear tales, written by Ryan T. Higgins, and promoted by Disney.

Summary:

Bruce is a grumpy bear who doesn’t like anything. He doesn’t like the sunshine or the rain, or even cute little animals. The only thing he likes are eggs, cooked in different ways. One day he finds a book with a recipe for cooking goose eggs with salmon sauce.

So he finds all the required ingredients and puts the eggs to boil, but his stove suddenly fizzles. While he collects firewood, the eggs hatch to become goslings, who believe that Bruce is the mother.

On returning, the bear sees the little geese and loses his appetite, and takes them back to the nest. But the goslings follow Bruce back to his home and he starts taking care of them as they won’t leave him.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go By Dr. Seuss

This book introduces your kids to important life lessons and values / Image credit: Amazon

This is one of the classic bedtime stories from The Dr. Suess collection and your little one will love going through its visuals and interesting storyline.

Summary:

This book takes your child through the different stages of life, situations they may face, and the choices they may have to make to deal with them. Dr. Seuss cleverly puts across different life lessons: you decide what to do and where to go and you are your own master. He also says that life isn’t going to be fun always, but you should keep moving ahead.

Bob And Otto By Nick And Robert O. Bruel

This book teaches kids about the value of friendships / Image credit: Amazon

This story is about two worms, Bob and Otto. Bob is a caterpillar and has colourful stripes on his body and Otto is a soil worm with pink skin.

Summary:

Bob and Otto are best friends who live on the same tree. One day, Bob says that he wants to climb the tree and see the world from above. Butt Otto doesn’t understand Bob’s dream to climb the tree as he loves to dig into the earth.

As Otto digs deeper into the ground, Bob continues to climb the tree, higher above the ground. Tired, they both fall asleep only to wake up after quite some time. After waking, Bob finds himself transformed into a beautiful butterfly, while Otto remains the same.

When Otto sees Bob again, he feels insecure due to his improved looks and flying skills. But Bob said, “When you dug the soil, it loosened, and the roots got more water, allowing the tree to sprout green leaves, which gave me energy and made me who I am today. You are not just a worm Otto, you are my best friend, and best friends are important.”

George And Martha By James Marshall

George and Martha are best friends and they learn about friendship through different experiences / Image credit: Amazon

This book is about friendship and features five short stories about two great friends. It has colourful illustrations that will help spark creativity in your little one.

Summary:

Martha and George are two hippos who are best friends. As they go on about their lives, they learn through experience that friends should always be truthful to each other. The friends happily spend time with each other every day, but they also respect each other’s privacy.

The stories also teach a key moral lesson to kids: Look on the bright side and always cheer for your friends, without lying.

A Colour Of His Own By Leo Lionni

This story teaches your kid’s about each one’s uniqueness / Image credit: Amazon

When you find someone who is just like you, you don’t feel left out or alone. This story is about a chameleon who struggles to accept his beautiful gift of changing colours, until he finds another friend just like him.

Summary:

A chameleon was sitting on a tiger’s back and realised that every animal has its unique colour and so should he. Hence, he jumped onto a green leaf and sat on it. But soon it was autumn and the leaf turned brown and so did he. Later it turned red, and so did the chameleon.

One day, he met another chameleon, who was older and wiser. When the chameleon realised that he won’t have his own colour, he decided to stay with the wiser chameleon, so that they won’t be alone.

Conclusion:

These bedtime stories for kids will help your little one drift into dreamland easily. Each story teaches your kids different morals and instills good values in them. So if your munchkin loves to read, you should definitely introduce them to these stories and explain the meaning behind them.