Looking for best bedtime stories for your kids? We got the solution for that. Ever since we were young, we had traditions of going for summer vacations to our grandparents’ house and sit around them at night just to hear stories that would give us hope and dreams. Talking in technical language – A bedtime story is a type of traditional storytelling in which a story is delivered to a kid before bedtime to prepare the child for sleep. Bedtime stories have long been seen as “a definite institution in many homes.”
Louise Chandler Moulton invented the term “bedtime story” in her 1873 book, Bed-time Stories. According to the scholar Robin Bernstein, the “ritual of an adult reading aloud to a child at bedtime formed primarily in the second half of the nineteenth century and rose to prominence in the early twentieth century in tandem with the rising belief that soothing rituals were necessary for children at the end of the day.”
Reading bedtime stories has numerous advantages for both parents and children. A bedtime story before sleeping can help a child’s brain growth, language mastery, and logical thinking skills. The parent and child form an emotional attachment as a result of the storyteller-listener relationship. Because of a child’s “strong imitative tendency,” the parent and the stories they tell serve as a model for the child to emulate.
Because most children are “naturally empathetic when they have experienced or can understand the feelings of others,” bedtime stories are also effective for teaching the kid abstract values such as sympathy, altruism, and self-control. As a result, bedtime stories can be utilized to discuss more serious topics such as mortality and prejudice. As the content of the bedtime stories broadens, the child’s “understanding of the lives and feelings of others” broadens.
So basically what audio books are today, bed time stories were in time before them. Even though that tradition is slowly slipping away from the grip of our generation’s hand; why don’t we revisit to the books and stories that made us happy and excited and relate to the characters, dreaming that one day we will be happy like those characters…
Here is the list of best bedtime stories of all time –
1. Midas and the Golden touch
Another traditional bedtime story for children is the fable of Midas. This Greek myth portrays King Midas as a selfish and dissatisfied man who desired riches above everything else. When he did a nice deed for someone, a Greek God appeared before him and told him that he would be granted his heart’s desire for doing the good deed. Midas wished that everything he touched would instantly turn to gold.
His wish was granted by God. Midas was overjoyed and began touching random items, changing everything he came into contact with into gold. He grew hungry after a time. When he touched his food, however, it changed to gold, and he was unable to eat it. He was hungry and disappointed that he couldn’t eat.
When his beloved daughter saw him in distress, she flung her arms around him to console him, and she, too, turned to gold. Midas was terrified that his daughter had turned into a gold statue. He regretted requesting the Golden Touch and realized he had been greedy and that gold was not the most valuable thing in the universe.
He sobbed and asked God to revoke his wish. The God felt sorry for him and told him to take a dip in the river near his castle, then fill a pitcher with river water and sprinkle it on everything he wanted to change back. He followed the recommendations and restored his daughter’s normalcy. He was overjoyed to reclaim his beloved daughter and immediately stopped being greedy.
2. The Boy Who Cried Wolf
This fable is from Aesop’s Fables and emphasises the importance of honesty. It tells the account of a shepherd child who came across a group of sheep near his hamlet. The location was known for having a wolf who was notorious for raiding the sheep flock and stealing a couple of sheep.
Every villager was aware of the threat and was always ready to help anyone who had a problem with the wolf. The child, on the other hand, dismissed the villagers’ helpfulness and mocked it. For fun, he summoned the villagers three times by calling out for help and saying “Wolf! Wolf!” And the people came to his rescue but they were fooled because he was playing prank.
But what happens when he really faced a wolf? He pays for his sins and gets left alone? Or they all help him?
3. Aladdin and The Magic Lamp
It’s a story filled with fantastic adventures. It relates the story of Aladdin, the son of an impoverished tailor. Aladdin’s mother gets money by spinning cotton when his father dies. One day, an evil magician approaches Aladdin and offers him money for performing a minor task. He also gives him a ring as a mark of his appreciation.
He then leads him to a concealed cave and instructs him to enter and bring him a lantern. The cave is brimming with wealth and valuables. Aladdin discovers the lamp and brings it to the cave’s entrance. But does he give it to the magician? Does he keep it to himself? You know it already but still read it in traditional way to enjoy it more.
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4. Beauty and The Beast
The ever loving fairy tale which teaches us that love the morals and personality of the person rather than their looks.
If I have to explain it in a sentence I’d say – The term “Beauty and the Beast” can refer to either the conventional fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” (French: La Belle et la Bête) or a genre motif in which a beautiful and well-liked individual falls in love and transforms a physically or emotionally damaged individual.
5. Goodnight Moon
This is a great children’s picture book. It depicts a bunny bidding goodnight to everything in its vicinity.
The sentences create a rhyming poem in which the rabbit says goodnight to different living and inanimate items around it, including a red balloon, a dollhouse, two cats, the moon, and so on. “Goodnight room, Goodnight moon, Goodnight cow jumping over the moon, Goodnight light, and Goodnight red balloon,” it says. Little children enjoy the rhymes, and the story’s calming pace swiftly lulls them to sleep.
6. The Ant and The Grasshopper
This is another Aesop’s Fable that discusses the value of hard work and planning for the future. The story is about a grasshopper that spends the summer singing and wasting his time.
Meanwhile, his neighbours, an ant colony, labour hard all summer to store food for the winter. The grasshopper mocks the ants and urges them to enjoy their summer. The ants warn the grasshopper that if he does not preserve food for the winter, he will starve when everything freezes. When winter arrives, the ants congregate in their nest, resting and subsisting on the food they have hoarded.
The hungry and freezing grasshopper arrives at their door. He begs the ants for food and claims to have realised his mistake. The ants give him their food and force him to agree to work hard next summer to gather and preserve food.
7. The Ugly Duckling
This is a favourite bedtime story for children. The plot begins on a farm, where a duck waits on a clutch of eggs in order for them to hatch. One by one, the eggs hatch, and soon there are six yellow-feathered ducklings peeping joyfully. The final egg takes the longest to hatch, and from it comes an odd duckling with grey feathers. Everyone, including the grey duckling’s mother, thinks it’s ugly. The sad duckling flees and spends the winter alone in a swamp.
When a farmer sees the duckling hungry in the winter, he takes pity on it and feeds and shelters it in his house. The duckling, on the other hand, is terrified by the farmer’s boisterous children and runs to a cave nearby. The duckling, however, is terrified of the farmer’s boisterous children and retreats to a cave near a frozen lake.
When spring arrives, a swan flock descends on the lake, and the duckling, now fully grown but lonely, approaches the swans, fully expecting to be rejected. The swans, to his amazement, greet him. He notices his reflection in the water and realises he is no longer an ugly duckling, but a lovely swan. The swan joins this group and takes flight with his new family.
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