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91 stories · part of Friendship

Kindness stories

Small good deeds that turn out to matter enormously

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Kindness stories

Kindness is the largest single theme on BedtimeStory.kids, with 91 stories in which a small good deed turns out to matter enormously. Most are gentle from start to finish, which makes this the safest shelf to pick from at the end of a difficult day.

In a kindness story the smallest character does the smallest good thing and it changes everything: the mouse frees the lion, the girl shares her last loaf, the boy carries the beetle out of the road. Children understand the logic immediately, because it is fair.

These stories are gentle by nature and suit any age. They are the ones to reach for after a hard day at nursery or school, when a child needs to hear that being kind is not the same as being weak.

Where to start in kindness

12 of the 91 stories in this theme, picked as good first choices: the shortest, the gentlest and the best loved.

6 min Ages 3–7 · Classic Tales The Princess and the Pea

A lonely Prince yearns for a true princess, but two grand ladies fail to impress him. Then, on a stormy night, a…

 7 min Ages 3–7 · Classic Tales The Gingerbread Man

A kind old woman bakes a delicious gingerbread man who springs to life and dashes off to explore the world. He meets a…

 7 min Ages 3–7 · Classic Tales The Ugly Duckling

A mother duck hatches a clutch of ducklings, but one egg is unusually large. When it hatches, the grey, scruffy…

 8 min Ages 3–7 · Classic Tales The Lion and the Mouse

A timid mouse and a mighty lion cross paths in the jungle. When the powerful king of the jungle finds himself in a…

 10 min Ages 3–7 · Classic Tales The Elves and the Shoemaker

A kind shoemaker and his wife struggle to make ends meet in their quaint village shop. One morning, they discover their…

 13 min Ages 4–8 · Classic Tales Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood sets off through the enchanting forest to deliver a basket of goodies to her sick grandmother…

 15 min Ages 4–8 · Magic Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Snow White, kind and gentle, lives in a magical forest, adored by all. Her wicked stepmother, the Queen, grows jealous…

 4 min Ages 4–8 · Rhyming Stories & Poems A Christmas Star

Timmy, a curious boy, loves gazing at the stars. One snowy night, he spots a new, golden star shining brightly above…

 4 min Ages 3–7 · Bravery & Courage Little Red Riding Hood (A Gentler Retelling)

Little Red Riding Hood loves visiting her kind grandmother, but the woods hold a warning: beware the sly wolf. When a…

 5 min Ages 3–7 · Classic Tales Jimmy Scarecrow’s Christmas

Jimmy the scarecrow diligently guards the farmer's crops, but as winter arrives, he feels lonely watching the family's…

 5 min Ages 4–8 · Classic Tales Lily and the Lion

In a magical meadow, kind Lily encounters a mighty lion seeking water. Showing courage, she helps him, and he…

 5 min Ages 3–7 · Magic The Anxious Leaf

Luna, a beautiful red leaf, is always anxious and fearful, longing to dance in the wind but held back by her worries. A…

The small act and the large consequence

The pattern is nearly always the same, and children never tire of it. Somebody does something minor and unrewarded. The story goes elsewhere. Then it comes back, and the small thing turns out to have been the hinge.

The Elves and the Shoemaker is the purest example, at eight minutes: the shoemaker’s gift to the elves is entirely useless to him and entirely the point. Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe, six minutes, turns on a child wishing for somebody else instead of herself.

Kindness that costs the character something

The stories worth saving are the ones where being kind is not free. Those are the ones a child remembers at school the following week.

Giving something up

Princess Kwan-Yin, seven minutes and retold from a Chinese legend, has a princess refuse the life she was born to. It suits six- to ten-year-olds and is calm rather than dramatic.

Being kind to someone difficult

Rabbit’s Eyes, eight minutes, and The Fair With Golden Hair, also eight, both turn on generosity towards somebody who has not earned it. That is the harder lesson and the more useful one.

If you want to open a conversation rather than leave it, questions to ask during a bedtime story has wording that does not sound like a test.

Ninety-one is too many: four to start with

A theme this size is not a reading list, so here is a short one.

Between them those four cover the range: a very short one, a reassuring one, a funny one and a long one. If none fits, work outwards by mood rather than by theme, since a gentle story from any shelf will do more at half past seven than a kindness story that happens to be exciting.

Where this theme sits, and what is next to it

Kindness is one of four pages under Friendship, which is the place to go if what you actually want is a story about two people getting along rather than one person being good.

Its nearest neighbour is Love, 56 stories, where the feeling is stronger and the stakes are higher. Between them they cover most of what a child is trying to work out about other people.

Being kind to somebody you were told to fear

The hardest kindness in these stories is the first move: being decent to a creature or a person everyone else has written off. It is also the version children find most useful, because playgrounds run on exactly this.

Three that turn on a first meeting

Snow White and Rose Red, seven minutes, begins with two sisters letting a bear in out of the snow. The Crow Peri, nine minutes, makes a friendship out of something that looks alarming. Riquet With The Tuft, seven minutes, is about being kind to someone widely considered ugly, and is franker about it than most.

Princess Hase, a Story of Old Japan extends the same idea to the natural world in seven gentle minutes, and is one of the calmest stories on the site.

None of these ends with the kind character being thanked, which is the detail that matters. The reward, where there is one, arrives sideways and late, and that is a far more honest picture of how kindness actually works than a story in which the good deed is immediately noticed.

Every kindness story, A to Z

  1. A Christmas Star4 min · Ages 4–8
  2. A Little Princess13 min · Ages 6–10
  3. Babiole8 min · Ages 5–8
  4. Cinderella11 min · Ages 4–8
  5. Giauna the Beautiful8 min · Ages 4–8
  6. Goody Two Shoes10 min · Ages 3–7
  7. Grandmother7 min · Ages 3–7
  8. Gubbon Seer7 min · Ages 5–8
  9. Hans in Luck6 min · Ages 5–8
  10. Hansel and Gretel21 min · Ages 6–10
  11. How Molo Stole the Lovely Rose-Red9 min · Ages 6–10
  12. Jimmy Scarecrow’s Christmas5 min · Ages 3–7
  13. Lily and the Lion5 min · Ages 4–8
  14. Little Blue Riding Hood7 min · Ages 3–7
  15. Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe7 min · Ages 4–8
  16. Little Red Riding Hood13 min · Ages 4–8
  17. Little Red Riding Hood (A Gentler Retelling)4 min · Ages 3–7
  18. Long, Broad and Sharpsight7 min · Ages 6–10
  19. Mudjee Monedo10 min · Ages 6–10
  20. My Own Self9 min · Ages 4–8
  21. One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes7 min · Ages 6–10
  22. Prince Yamato Take9 min · Ages 5–8
  23. Princess Hase, a Story of Old Japan8 min · Ages 4–8
  24. Princess Kwan-Yin10 min · Ages 6–10
  25. Puss in Boots14 min · Ages 4–8
  26. Rabbit’s Eyes10 min · Ages 4–8
  27. Riquet With The Tuft9 min · Ages 4–8
  28. Santa Never Forgets!7 min · Ages 3–7
  29. Seven At One Blow7 min · Ages 5–8
  30. Snow White and Rose Red7 min · Ages 4–8
  31. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs20 min · Ages 5–8
  32. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves15 min · Ages 4–8
  33. Son of the Island and the Turtle7 min · Ages 4–8
  34. Sunshine Stories10 min · Ages 3–7
  35. The Anxious Leaf5 min · Ages 3–7
  36. The Blue Bird20 min · Ages 6–10
  37. The Boy Who Cried Wolf6 min · Ages 4–8
  38. The Butterfly5 min · Ages 3–7
  39. The Courteous Prince6 min · Ages 5–8
  40. The Crow Peri10 min · Ages 4–8
  41. The Daughter of the Mother in the Corner10 min · Ages 4–8
  42. The Devoted Friend6 min · Ages 4–8
  43. The Elder Tree Mother6 min · Ages 4–8
  44. The Elves and the Shoemaker10 min · Ages 3–7
  45. The Fair With Golden Hair10 min · Ages 3–7
  46. The Fairy9 min · Ages 4–8
  47. The Faithless Parrot9 min · Ages 5–8
  48. The Farmer and the Snake6 min · Ages 3–7
  49. The Fir Tree5 min · Ages 3–7
  50. The Friendly Frog5 min · Ages 3–7
  51. The Giant Who Had No Heart In His Body8 min · Ages 4–8
  52. The Gingerbread Man7 min · Ages 3–7
  53. The Golden Goose13 min · Ages 4–8
  54. The Goose Girl19 min · Ages 6–10
  55. The Happy Prince16 min · Ages 6–10
  56. The Lad Who Went to the North Wind10 min · Ages 6–10
  57. The Lion and the Mouse8 min · Ages 3–7
  58. The Lion, the Fox, and the Beasts10 min · Ages 5–8
  59. The Little Good Mouse9 min · Ages 4–8
  60. The Little Match Girl13 min · Ages 4–8
  61. The Little Weed7 min · Ages 4–8
  62. The Mad Goose and the Tiger Forest8 min · Ages 4–8
  63. The Magic Fishbone6 min · Ages 5–8
  64. The Magical Tale of Cinderella21 min · Ages 4–8
  65. The Miraculous Pitcher7 min · Ages 4–8
  66. The Monkey’s Heart7 min · Ages 5–8
  67. The Moon-Cake6 min · Ages 3–7
  68. The Nightingale11 min · Ages 8–12
  69. The Old Man and His Grandson8 min · Ages 4–8
  70. The Princess and the Pea6 min · Ages 3–7
  71. The Princess Who Wasn’t8 min · Ages 4–8
  72. The Queen Bee8 min · Ages 4–8
  73. The Queer Little Baker Man8 min · Ages 4–8
  74. The Selfish Giant14 min · Ages 4–8
  75. The Snow Queen8 min · Ages 4–8
  76. The Stones of Five Colours and the Empress Jokwa8 min · Ages 5–8
  77. The Tale of Tom Thumb11 min · Ages 6–10
  78. The Three Dwarfs5 min · Ages 3–7
  79. The Three Robbers9 min · Ages 4–8
  80. The Troll Wedding7 min · Ages 4–8
  81. The Twelve Wild Ducks7 min · Ages 4–8
  82. The Ugly Duckling7 min · Ages 3–7
  83. The Water Lily and The Gold-Spinners5 min · Ages 3–7
  84. The Weeds8 min · Ages 4–8
  85. The White Doe6 min · Ages 4–8
  86. The White Duck5 min · Ages 4–8
  87. The Wise Girl6 min · Ages 6–10
  88. Three Feathers10 min · Ages 6–10
  89. Thumbelina7 min · Ages 4–8
  90. Tom Tit Tot11 min · Ages 4–8
  91. Why The Animals No Longer Fear The Sheep7 min · Ages 4–8

Questions parents ask about kindness stories

What is a good bedtime story about being kind?

The Elves and the Shoemaker, about eight minutes, is the clearest: a small unrewarded gift turns out to be the point of the whole story. Jimmy Scarecrow's Christmas is a four-minute alternative for younger children.

Can a bedtime story actually make a child kinder?

Stories give children a rehearsal rather than a rule, letting them watch what kindness costs and what it changes. That is a slower effect than instruction and a more lasting one.

Where does the phrase goody two shoes come from?

From a children's tale published by John Newbery in the 1760s about a poor girl with only one shoe. The version on BedtimeStory.kids takes about ten minutes to read aloud.

How many kindness stories are there on this site?

There are 91, making it the largest theme on BedtimeStory.kids. Most are written for ages three to eight.