Here are fifty bedtime story starters, sorted by age and by the mood of the night. Each gives you a hero, a problem and a hint at the ending, which is all a five-minute story needs. Pick one, read it aloud, ask what the hero is called, and begin.

How to use a prompt at nine o'clock

A prompt is the first sentence and the last with the middle left out. Fill the middle with three tries: the first fails plainly, the second fails closer or funnier, the third works because of who the hero is. How to write a bedtime story lays that out step by step, and the on-the-spot method covers inventing aloud with no time to plan. Say the ending slowly, twice.

The fifty prompts

Toddlers (1 to 3): lost and found

A familiar object, one gentle problem, no peril.

  1. The lost mitten. A red mitten falls off a pushchair and must find its way home; a friendly dog carries it to the right doorstep.
  2. The teddy who could not sleep. Teddy tries the cot, the big chair and the bottom stair; the only place he sleeps is beside the child.
  3. The duck who lost her quack. She tries "moo" and "baa" and both come out wrong; one big splash in a puddle shakes the quack loose.
  4. The snail's race to the bath. Everyone in the house is faster, but the snail keeps climbing, and the water is still warm when she arrives.
  5. The tractor who was too small. Nobody lets him work the big field, until the big tractor is stuck in the mud and only a small one can help.
  6. The blue sock hunt. Not under the bed, not in the wash, not in the toy box; it is in the dog's basket, being kept warm.
  7. The moon wants a blanket. A thin cloud is too small and a storm cloud too scratchy; a big soft cloud fits, and the moon sleeps.
  8. The bus that says goodnight. On the way home it says goodnight to the shop, the swings and the river, then turns off its own lights.

Preschoolers (3 to 5): one brave thing

The hero is frightened of the thing the story needs them to do, and does it on the third try.

  1. The dragon scared of candles. He hides under the table every birthday, until the candles will not light and only a small puff of fire will do.
  2. The moon needs a babysitter. The moon is too sleepy to stay up, so a small owl keeps it company; the owl sings, and the moon drops off first.
  3. The princess with hiccups. The parade is in an hour; water and breath-holding fail; a tiny mouse popping out of a teacup does the trick.
  4. The rabbit and the oak tree. Her mother says never go past the oak; she does, finds a lost hedgehog, and brings him home before anyone notices.
  5. The missing green crayon. The garden picture has no grass; not in the pot, the pencil case or the car; it is in the dog's bed.
  6. The pirate afraid of water. He has a ship, a hat and a parrot but will not get wet; the treasure is at the bottom of the paddling pool.
  7. The kitten who wanted to roar. Three roars come out as squeaks; at the zoo she meets a sad old lion, and her purr is what cheers him.
  8. The snowman who wanted summer. He spends the spring in the freezer beside the peas, and on the hottest day of July is carried out for one afternoon.
  9. The boy whose shadow ran off. Not under the bed or in the wardrobe; it is playing with the streetlamp, and comes home when the lamp goes out.
  10. The mouse who could not say no. She lends her scarf, lunch and umbrella to anyone who asks; when the fox invites her for a walk, she says "No, thank you."
  11. The frog and the big log. He cannot jump it; with a snail, a beetle and a worm he builds a step, and they watch the sunset from the top.
  12. The bear who ate all the honey. His tummy aches until a drink of water and a "sorry" to the bees, who give him a small pot for tomorrow.

Early readers (5 to 8): puzzles and secrets

A real problem, a clever hero, a villain beaten early. Let the child solve the last try.

  1. The lighthouse keeper's daughter. The lamp fails in fog with a boat coming in; she rows out with a jar of fireflies, and the boat steers by it.
  2. The map of his own house. A boy finds a map of his house in an old book, X in the attic; the treasure is his grandmother's teddy, lost fifty years.
  3. Three bad wishes and a fish. A rescued fish grants three wishes; the first two go wrong in silly ways; she uses the last to undo them and keeps the fish.
  4. The knight and the dragon. Each is scared of the other and neither can cross the river alone; they build a bridge together and cross side by side.
  5. The robot who wanted to dream. Counting sheep does nothing and warm milk is a bad idea for a robot; a story read by a child gives him his first dream.
  6. The fox who lost his cunning. For one day he has to be honest; it goes badly until supper, when he finds he has been given more than he ever stole.
  7. The class hamster's weekend. Biscuit escapes on Friday and visits every house in the street; on Monday he is found asleep in the teacher's pocket.
  8. The girl who could talk to trains. The last train is lost in fog; she stands at the end of the platform and sings, and the train follows her voice in.
  9. The village that lost its colours. Everything is grey; a boy with three crayons left gives the colours back in the right order, finishing with his own front door.
  10. The apprentice's tidying spell. Cast to tidy his room, it tidies the whole house, the garden and the cat; undoing it takes three tries and a patient cat.
  11. The troll who wanted kindness. Two squabbling sisters must cross a bridge; the troll lets them past only when each says something kind and true about the other.
  12. The mountain that wanted climbing. Every path has beaten the big animals; a small goat finds the narrow third path and has the top to herself at sunset.

Big kids (8 to 12): mysteries and swaps

An untidy edge: a secret kept, a change that stays changed, a hero who gets something other than what they wanted.

  1. The compass that finds what is lost. Keys and a cat are easy; then she asks it to find something her grandfather lost, and it points at her.
  2. The boy who swapped with his reflection. For one day he lives inside the mirror; each learns what the other's day is like, and they swap back at bedtime, kinder.
  3. The last lamplighter. The town goes electric and his job is over; in the end the children ask him to light one lamp on the hill each winter night.
  4. The ship that ran out of stories. Halfway to Mars the crew have told every story they know; each makes one up, and the captain's quiet one lasts until landing.
  5. The letter in the library book. A note dated fifty years ago falls out; the girl writes back and leaves it in the book; a reply in an old hand is waiting next week.
  6. The king who banned bedtime. Nobody need ever sleep, and the kingdom is chaos in three days; the queen tells a story so slow the whole court, king included, drops off.
  7. The dog who came home from three towns away. He follows the smell of the river, the sound of the church bell and the taste of the wind, and is home first.
  8. The twins with half a map each. They have not spoken since an argument, and the treasure needs both halves; finding it is easy, sharing it is the story.

Sleepy nights: lists that get quieter

Lists that get shorter and slower. Read them last, in your softest voice.

  1. The tide going out. The sea leaves a shell, a crab, a ribbon of weed and a pool with one fish, then goes further and further away to sleep.
  2. The animals' night bus. At each stop an animal gets off to bed, cow, owl, fox, cat, until the last passenger is the child, whose stop is home.
  3. The star that came down to see a bed. It tries the pillow, the blanket and the teddy, decides a bed is a fine thing, and floats back up a little sleepier.
  4. The garden at night. Each flower closes in turn and a hedgehog checks on every one; when the last is shut, he curls up under the biggest leaf.
  5. The lullaby the wind learnt. The wind hears a mother singing through a window and carries the tune over the town, softer at every roof, until it reaches this one.

Giggly nights: five silly ones

Some nights a laugh settles better than a shush. Before teeth.

  1. The pancake that would not be flipped. It leaps out of the pan and out of the door, and is caught in the end not by a fox but by a toddler who asks nicely.
  2. The king who ordered the sea dry. Mops, towels and a very large hairdryer all fail; the king, sulking, goes for a paddle and rather enjoys it.
  3. The cow in the chimney. Daisy went up for the view and cannot come down; pulling, pushing and a ladder fail; a bucket of grass at the bottom works.
  4. The day the socks swapped feet. Every sock in town wakes on the wrong person, the mayor's on the baby; it takes until bedtime to sort out, and nobody minds.
  5. The giant scared of a beetle. The beetle is small and polite; the giant hides behind the castle, the hill and the moon before it explains it only wanted to say hello.

A prompt into a story in sixty seconds

Take number 10. Ask the child the owl's name, state the problem, three tries, then the landing:

The moon was tired. It had been up every night for a hundred years and wanted a night off, but somebody had to keep the sky company. So a small owl called Wren said, "I will." First she told the moon a joke, but the moon only yawned. Then she flew a loop-the-loop, but the moon's eyes were closing. Then Wren sang the quietest song she knew, the one her mother sang, and the moon smiled, and nodded, and was asleep. And Wren sat on her branch and kept the whole sky company, all by herself, until morning.

A hundred words; a minute aloud, or three with the song hummed.

Where these ideas come from

None of these is new; they are the old tales' shapes with the names changed. The lost mitten is a journey and return, like The Lad Who Went to the North Wind. The rabbit and the oak is a rule that must not be broken, the engine of Little Red Riding Hood. The goat on the mountain is small beats big, as in The Lion and the Mouse; the frog and the log is The Enormous Turnip in a pond. When you run dry, the animal stories hold the most heroes, the moon and stars stories the sleepy ones, and magic the wishes and spells. Read one, change the animal: a fifty-first.

Tonight

Choose a prompt for the right age and read it aloud as written. Then say, "So. What was the owl called?" and begin. If it stalls, read The Silent Flight of the Lunar Owl or The Crow and the Pitcher instead.