Bedtime reading stories

Bedtime Stories | Free 5 Min Bedtime Stories for Kids Online Bedtime Stories

The Classic fairytale of Cinderella: a young girl, mistreated by her step-mother and step-sisters, who finds out that dreams really can come true.

The Classic Fairytale Story of Snow White with a Modern Twist: Who is the “fair”est of them all? Snow White of course!

A Bedtime Story of Honesty, Courage and Truth. If Pinocchio is to become a Real boy he needs to learn how to be honest, brave and true.

A Grimm’s Brother Tale: A miller tells a tale that his daughter can turn straw into gold. A strange little man is willing to help…for a price. Guess his name and he will be gone…but what is his name?

Goldilocks and the Three Bears ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids. Goldilocks finds the three bears cottage in the woods. Should she make herself comfortable?

Hansel and Gretel Bedtime Stories for Kids. When Hansel and Gretel go in search of food, they find a gingerbread house. But who is inside?

A Story of Friendship, Love and Courage. Rapunzel’s Story ~ A Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale. An evil witch has trapped Rapunzel in a tower. Can her long hair or love save her?

A Story of Courage, Justice and Self-Awareness. Merlin the Magician places a magic sword in a stone…whomever can pull it out is the rightful king.

A Bedtime Story of Acceptance and Self-Awareness. A Mama Duck is proud when her six ducklings hatch from their eggs. But one duckling does not look like the others? Is he truly an Ugly Duckling?

The classic Brother’s Grimm fairytale that sparked the Disney adaptation.

A Story of Courage, Learning and Love. The Classic fairy tale: The Little Mermaid falls in love with a prince on shore and she makes a deal with the Sea Witch to become human. But without her voice, how can the prince fall in love with her?

This Classic Folktale is adapted from the original story of “Aladdin” from The Arabian Nights. Aladdin, the Genie and the Magic Lamp work to impress the princess who wishes to be a commoner.

A Story of Courage, Kindness to Animals and Learning. The Classic Tale of a male deer, Bambi, his mother and his adventures learning in the woods.

A Story of Charity, Compassion and Justice, from England. Robin Hood takes part in an archery contest thrown by the Sheriff of Nottingham. Will he realize its a trap before it is too late? One of the many Tales of Robin Hood.

This is the Legend Tale of Maui the Demi-God from Moana. It is part of our Classic Bedtime Stories for Kids Collection. It has been adapted from the Tales of Maui as well as Disney’s version of Moana.

A Bedtime Story in Simple English for Kids. A toy rabbit learns that through a child’s love it can become real.

The Classic Tale of the Snow Queen: Gerda and Kai struggle to fight the Snow Queen and find the balance between Good and Evil.

The Classic Fairy Tale of Sleeping Beauty. Princess Aurora has been cursed by Maleficent. When she pricks herself on a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday, she is put into a deep sleep for 100 years. Who can save her?

Bedtime Story for Kids: The Gift of the Magi, A Christmas Story. Della and Jim wish to give each other the perfect Christmas present, but how will they come up with the money?

A Bedtime Story of Friendship, Courage and Acceptance. . The story tells of the time Pocahontas saved the life of settler John Smith from her father, Powhatan.

A Cinderella Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids

The Classic fairytale of Cinderella: a young girl, mistreated by her step-mother and step-sisters, who finds out that dreams really can come true.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids

The Classic Fairytale Story of Snow White with a Modern Twist: Who is the “fair”est of them all? Snow White of course!

Pinocchio Story ~ Fairy Tale Bedtime Stories in English for Kids

A Bedtime Story of Honesty, Courage and Truth. If Pinocchio is to become a Real boy he needs to learn how to be honest, brave and true.

Beauty and the Beast Classic Tale ~ Fairy Tale Stories for Kids

The classic fairy tale of a beautiful woman and the monstrous beast.

Rumpelstiltskin ~ A Fairy Tale Bedtime Story for Kids

Goldilocks and the Three Bears ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids

Goldilocks and the Three Bears ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids. Goldilocks finds the three bears cottage in the woods. Should she make herself comfortable?

Hansel and Gretel ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids

Hansel and Gretel Bedtime Stories for Kids. When Hansel and Gretel go in search of food, they find a gingerbread house. But who is inside?

Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm ~ Bedtime Stories

A Story of Friendship, Love and Courage. Rapunzel’s Story ~ A Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale. An evil witch has trapped Rapunzel in a tower. Can her long hair or love save her?

The Sword in the Stone: a King Arthur Legend of the Sword Story

A Story of Courage, Justice and Self-Awareness. Merlin the Magician places a magic sword in a stone…whomever can pull it out is the rightful king.

The Ugly Duckling Story ~ Fairy Tale Story for Kids in English

A Bedtime Story of Acceptance and Self-Awareness. A Mama Duck is proud when her six ducklings hatch from their eggs. But one duckling does not look like the others? Is he truly an Ugly Duckling?

The Frog Prince: The Story of the Princess and the Frog ~ Bedtime Stories

The classic Brother’s Grimm fairytale that sparked the Disney adaptation.

The Little Mermaid Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids in English

Aladdin and the Magic Lamp from The Arabian Nights ~ Bedtime Stories

This Classic Folktale is adapted from the original story of “Aladdin” from The Arabian Nights. Aladdin, the Genie and the Magic Lamp work to impress the princess who wishes to be a commoner.

Bambi Story: A Life in the Woods ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids in English

A Story of Courage, Kindness to Animals and Learning. The Classic Tale of a male deer, Bambi, his mother and his adventures learning in the woods.

Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow Story ~ Legend Stories for Kids

Maui from Moana: Tales of the Demi-God ~ Legend Stories for Kids

The Velveteen Rabbit Story ~ Bedtime English Story for Kids

A Bedtime Story in Simple English for Kids. A toy rabbit learns that through a child’s love it can become real.

The Snow Queen Fairy Tale Story ~Bedtime Story for Kids

The Classic Tale of the Snow Queen: Gerda and Kai struggle to fight the Snow Queen and find the balance between Good and Evil.

Sleeping Beauty Fairy Tale Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids

The Gift of the Magi Story ~ A Holiday Story for Kids

Bedtime Story for Kids: The Gift of the Magi, A Christmas Story. Della and Jim wish to give each other the perfect Christmas present, but how will they come up with the money?

Pocahontas and John Smith Story ~ Folktales Stories for Kids

A Bedtime Story of Friendship, Courage and Acceptance. . The story tells of the time Pocahontas saved the life of settler John Smith from her father, Powhatan.

The Emperor’s New Clothes Story ~ Bedtime Stories

A Bedtime Story in Simple English for Kids. The Emperor is fooled into believing he is wearing magic clothes which can’t be “seen”.

Mulan Story ~ Tale of Hua Mulan Bedtime Stories | English Story for Kids

A Bedtime Story in Simple English for Kids. Based on the “Ballad of Mulan” and Disney’s Mulan, this is a legend tale about a girl who goes in disguise as a boy and joins the army in her brother’s place.

Short Stories for Kids ~ Folk tales, Fairy Tales, Riddles, Legends, Poems

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Teaching Resources from Stories to Grow By

In addition to our bedtime stories, we also offer a multitude teaching resources! This includes over 100 free bedtime stories, fairy tales, folk tales, readers theater play scripts, and performance notes!

You will find the bedtime stories and the materials you need for your classroom with Stories to Grow By.

Fairy Tales, Bedtime Stories and Kids Poems!

A guided meditation for children about being warm and cosy, while the world is cold outside. A tranquil bedtime story to initiate sweet dreams...

5 Min Stories Age 4-6 All Early Readers Early Readers Learning Picture Books Picture Books Reading Sleep and Bedtime Stories Toys

Stripy Elephant and his friends have a BIG problem... they never hear the end of the bedtime story! So Stripy Elephant decides he will learn to read...

November 21, 2022November 23, 2022

A vintage story to learn the alphabet... featuring a delicious apple pie!

A nature alphabet ABCD book for tomorrow's little learners.

Tone and Nyunyu are raindrops about to fall from the sky!

View 5 Min Stories

All the parents have gone on strike, and Harry is dealing with a school bully who wants a gourmet salad.

Pembral can't help but forget things... but will his Mum still love him when he forgets something important?

A lovely story of two friends who show true friendship and kindness to one another.

View 10 Min Stories

A mouse looks for the best house in which to have sweet dreams.

You can do so many things with your special blankie!

Shongololo has lost its shoes! Can the other animals help find them?

View Age 0-3

Baby Octopus becomes stuck in a nasty plastic bottle!

Nkanyezi's village has forgotten how to celebrate spring. Luckily Nkanyezi is there to help!

When Veeru goes to a circus, he is inspired to make his own circus show at home.

View Age 4-6

A day in the life of being an otter... life on the river is not always easy, but it's fun with family around!

Sigurd and his horse are a great team in the face of challenges and adventures.

When Henny Penny is hit on the head, she thinks the sky is falling down!

View Age 7-12

A young girl breaks her promise, and must voyage east of the sun and west of the moon to recover her love.

A giant keeps Jack prisoner for seven years... until finally he makes his escape!

A little boy's parents treat his grandfather terribly... until the parents realise an important lesson.

View Fairy Tales

A simple picture story about gratitude, and what our friends do for us.

Tiger has such delicious pies, but everyone is too scared to eat them!

Finnbar the dog becomes friends with some fireflies.

View Early Readers

The classic Christmas story of the value of generosity, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Suzie dreams of tigers rushing past on the streets outside her bedroom. Her twin brother Jack tells her it was only a dream, but was it?

A boy goes on an adventure to save an imprisoned baby dragon.

View Chapter Books

Pepper and Carrot spend a miraculous day together making magic in the snow...

When a herd of unicorns pass, a sad little donkey wishes he was more like them.

Pepper really wants a Christmas tree... and disregards the instructions in her magic book to get one!

View Comic Books

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man, bake me a cake just as fast as you can. ..

A child imagines all sorts of fantastical creatures who bring children to sleep!

Tom, Tom, the piper's son, stole a pig and away he run...!

View Nursery Rhymes

All the clocks can't agree on who is the best!

A short and sweet poem about our much-loved Moms!

A lovely poem about bedtime and the seasons.

View Poems for Kids

There was once a very strange kind of house. It was not an ordinary house... and it was the site of an extraordinary battle...

When you're learning to fly broomsticks in the classroom, all sorts of things are about to happen!

A girl creates an army, to fight a wicked man who started war.

View Kids Writing

Bedtime stories for children. ⭐😴Read online with pictures.

In this section we have collected interesting fairy tales from all over the world that are suitable for reading before bed. You can read them online and completely free. These small instructive and kind stories will help children calm down after a stormy day and tune in to rest.
In bedtime stories you will not find cruelty and frightening characters. Only light plots and pleasant characters.
At the bottom of each fairy tale there is a hint for what age it is intended for, as well as other tags. Be sure to pay attention to them when choosing a product! You do not have to spend time reading a fairy tale to find out if it suits your child or not. We have already read everything, sorted and compiled short descriptions of fairy tales.
Enjoy reading and good dreams :)

An interesting fairy tale is that part of childhood that stays with us forever, even when childhood is gone. This is a magical world that is wide open in front of the baby, and acquaintance with it begins with a short and sweet bedtime story.

At what age to read fairy tales to a child

There is no strict age limit in reading fairy tales to a child. Reading for a child is primarily an opportunity for emotional intimacy with an adult. Even if not a word is clear yet, the familiar timbre of the voice, the measured rhythm soothe the baby and stimulate its development. That is why psychologists recommend reading fairy tales even to babies. The main condition: the process should bring pleasure to both the adult and the baby.

Benefits of reading fairy tales

A bedtime story read by a parent is a powerful stimulus for the child's development, a child's wide opportunities in the following areas:

imagination;
fantasy;
creative thinking;
speech skills;
emotional development;
the ability to find a way out of problem situations.

Unlike cartoons, a fairy tale does not present the child with ready-made images and the world invented by the artist, but invites him to think, think out and imagine what is not in the illustrations.

Simply put, we read to children at night and at the same time unleash their creativity. The next step is the first children's tests of themselves as an author and artist, but that will come later. And now such familiar and at the same time amazing short bedtime stories come to the aid of parents.

Bedtime stories - what should they be?

It often happens that every day a baby asks for the hundredth time to read a familiar fairy tale to him, not wanting to listen to any others.

Do not argue and try to read something new - a bedtime story exists for this, to cradle and give pleasant dreams. So, it should be:

short;
calm;
kind;
without dynamic details in the plot, but with a happy ending.

The repeated repetition of the same situation (a familiar room, a favorite blanket and a soft toy, next to it is a mother reading a familiar fairy tale) turns into a kind of ritual for the baby, which has a calming effect. It helps relieve the emotional stress that has accumulated over a long day.

Short stories on our website

The Short Bedtime Stories section presents famous works by Russian and foreign authors that have become favorites for children all over the world.

Magic little men created by Astrid Lindgren, Donald Bisset's kind tigers, Sergei Kozlov's inseparable Hedgehog and Bear cub - these and other characters are looking forward to meeting young readers.

Here you will also find folk tales and illustrated works by Vladimir Suteev. Kids will be delighted with simple instructive stories and colorful pictures created by a real Master.

Tips on the site

The free bedtime stories presented on our site are so diverse that sometimes it can be difficult to find the right one. To help parents, we have developed a convenient search engine that allows you to view the parameters of a fairy tale without opening it:

readers' age;
reading time;
short description;
popularity indicator;
illustration.

Secrets of reading bedtime stories

In order to replace the evening fairy tale with a sweet dream, it should be a short fairy tale, which should be read online in a calm and familiar environment.

Read in a low voice, without haste. Remember, we read to children at night not to give them new knowledge - there is daytime for this. In the evening, it is important to create a relaxing atmosphere and a sense of peace. For this, it is important to choose the right bedtime story, which is why our site is always open for you, dear parents!

Bedtime story - Reading a story to a child before bed

Few people think that reading a bedtime story to a child is not just a traditional and pleasant, but also a very useful ritual. Most recently, in a large-scale study, scientists found that children to whom parents read books, some parts of the brain work differently than those in whose families it was not customary to read with the baby. We are talking about the difference in the work of that part of the brain that is responsible for the connection of sounds and visual images.

The fact is that when a baby listens to a fairy tale and at the same time looks at a picture in a book, sitting in his mother's arms, he learns to think out those actions that are described in the book, but are not visible in the picture. "Grandma baked a bun." Here is a grandmother in the picture, here is a gingerbread man, and here is a stove - and the work began to boil. Neural connections began to build in the brain that help the baby “see” what happened in history. Not at all the same effect is obtained from watching a cartoon, where the whole process is shown to the child in finished form.

Researchers say that children whose parents read picture books before bed turn out to be more interested and receptive readers in the future. The ability to imagine all the events described in the book develops in them so well that, becoming schoolchildren, they learn everything they read faster, and with great pleasure move on to books without pictures.

It is known that children need to hear human speech in order to develop their own speech skills. But not in every family, the baby hears such a rich set of words and phrases addressed to him. The researchers analyzed a whole list of popular picture books, and it turned out that even books for the youngest, which contain very little text, significantly enrich the child's vocabulary. They contain more "unique" words than a baby in an average family hears throughout the first years of life.

Thus, children who listen to books from infancy begin to pronounce and understand words faster and have a wider vocabulary than their peers who have not been read books. In addition, their brains are better able to represent what they read, and therefore they become more thoughtful and attentive readers. And, as a result, they do better in their studies in the future.

Why is it so important to read just before bed? It is this time that the kids should associate with the time of comfort, safety and coziness. And an important component of this feeling is the mother's voice. All children like to listen to their mother when she sings or speaks only for him alone. He absorbs her phrases and intonations, adopts the manner of speaking, and through his voice feels the attitude of his mother and her love. And the connection only intensifies if at this moment the child is sitting on his mother's lap or holding her hand. Such moments contribute to the formation of truly close and trusting relationships. And in the future, it will be easier for you to move from reading a fairy tale before bed to discussing topics and thoughts that are important for a growing child.

If the baby still does not like to look at the book in his mother's hands, tries to take it away, crumple the pages, gets upset and pushes the book away, then gradually accustom the baby to “reading”. Read to him when he is awake and in a good mood. Interest him by naming the characters shown in the pictures. Pay special attention to already familiar animals and objects so that the baby is delighted to recognize them. And introduce the book into the evening rituals unobtrusively, without immediately suggesting a long story.

By the way, be prepared for the fact that at a certain age (usually from one to two years old) the baby may insist on reading the same book for many evenings. Children love familiar things, they love predictability, it calms them down and helps them fall asleep peacefully. As a rule, simple verses are well perceived at this age.