Bedtime stories

Gentle, soothing tales for the last minutes before sleep: soft endings and quiet magic, free to read aloud with no account needed.

A bedtime tale has a different job from the rest. It should end quietly and leave nobody wide awake on the last page. These were picked for the end of the day, mostly Grimm and Andersen, with a few from Joseph Jacobs and Flora Annie Steel.

Each one shows its reading time and age range before you open it. The shortest run two minutes, for evenings when eyes are closing already. The longest go past twenty, for a Friday with no early start.

All of them are retold for reading aloud: the sentences finish in one breath and the names do not trip a tired voice. Reading is free and needs no account.