Our Favorite Bedtime Stories
Lord knows that reading before bed never grows old—it’s just that as we mature, we’re left to our own devices to get the reading done. Gone are the days when our mother or father would read to us aloud, tuck our book away, and turn the lights off when we’ve dozed off. (These days we wake up with the lights still on and a sore neck.) It’d be nice to have someone read us a bedtime story now and then, especially one of these, our favorites from childhood:
“Besides thinking that ants lived inside (and operated) the car radio, and that hammerhead sharks spawned in the community pool filter, one of my long-held erroneous beliefs as a child was that if I could only climb into the television, I’d be able to see where all these cereal commercials and sitcoms originated from. Well, thankyouverymuch Don Freeman (of Corduroy fame) for writing the one children’s book that was exactly about this topic. I speak (reverently) of The Paper Party—a little unknown 1974 paperback picture book where a young boy named Jory watches television alone in the basement while his parents host a dinner party upstairs. Before he knows it, a clown from his favorite show “The Dinky Donks” is leaning out of the television screen and beckoning him up a small red ladder that he has placed in front of the TV set. Jory climbs into the television, walks past house-sized cereal boxes, an array of blinding, colorful lights, and directly into his regularly-scheduled program where he is honored at a party where everything is made of paper—the giant stars, the snow that falls halfway through the party, and the big papier-mache cake with cotton frosting that is cut with scissors. Eventually, Jory runs home where the TV is once again just a TV and his dog Peetza is waiting for him, BUT HE IS FOREVER CHANGED. I don’t know if this book is more Stephen King or C.S. Lewis or Electric Kool-Aod Acid Test, but I could not get enough of it. I still can’t. I gave it to my son a few years ago, with the hopes his mind would be blown, but he didn’t get it. I think I’m going to have to steal it back. Okay. I just did. I just stole a book from my child.” —Whitney Collins
“My favorite bedtime story as a child was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. The story focuses on an intrepid, high-maintenance mouse who proves the old adage “if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile.” After receiving a cookie from a little boy, the mouse asks for a plethora of related favors. As a child I remember thinking to myself, that is one brazen mouse! To have the audacity, as a mouse, to ask a human being for all these favors? It’s mind-boggling! Although I was three, so I probably articulated those feelings by asking if I could have a cookie. My mom and I grew more incredulous after each outrageous request. “The mouse is now asking to be read a story? That mouse has some nerve.” Looking back, it’s possible my mom wasn’t really all that upset with the mouse’s moxie, she was probably just being a dedicated storyteller, but I certainly didn’t appreciate the mouse’s cavalier attitude. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, or the adult equivalent If a Friend Asks You to Help Them Move, proves there’s no such thing as an easy favor.” —Josh Sorokach
“When I was a toddler my dad used to read me Amelia Bedelia books before I went to bed—until my mom noticed that he was changing the story and A.B. was “going nuts and killing Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.” (My parents instilled in me an early sense of sarcasm.) My mom took over reading duties and we read Madeline so many times that I memorized it and would fool people into thinking I could read by reciting the lines holding the book in front of me. Still do have it memorized—In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines…” —Lauren Passell
“The bedtime book I loved best was The Sneetches and Other Stories. My dad would do the most amazing voice for Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the huckster figure in a parable of tolerance that largely missed its mark with me (I just hated those snotty star-belly Sneetches.) The “other stories” part of the book included Too Many Daves, a hilarious two-pager about a woman who named every one of her many sons Dave. The story is mostly just a long list of suggested alternative names, including the endlessly awesome Oliver Boliver Butt. But all was not well in Seussville, and there was a worm in this story collection’s apple: What Was I Scared Of, which, until I just googled it, had stuck in my memory as The Pants With Nobody in Them. This dark tale follows a cute little Seuss creature who keeps running into a ghostly pair of sentient pants, which he first fears but eventually befriends. HOLY CRAP, did those pants ever scare me!” —Melissa Albert
“My favorite childhood bedtime story was an illustrated version of The Bremen Town Musicians. Don’t ask me what the story was about. I’m assuming it took place in a town called Bremen. The only thing I can remember about it (and the reason I loved it so much) was for one double-page rendering of a group of thieves eating dinner. I remember the drawings made the food look so amazing. There were eggs, steak, sausages, cheese, grapes… I just remember it making me really hungry.” —Josh Perilo
“One of my favorite bedtime stories growing up was the Little House on the Prairie series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Listening to the adventures of Ma and Pa Ingalls and their children always made me drowsy—not only thanks to my father’s soothing voice, but because life on the frontier just seemed so tiring. All of the grueling day-to-day chores—from washing clothes to hunting, from churning butter to tending the farm—sounded absolutely exhausting. As a six year old, pondering the idea of chopping wood outside in the cold made my cozy warm bed seem even more comfortable. I loved learning about life on the prairie, but I also loved not having to experience it.” —Molly Schoemann-McCann
“Can a book that contributed to a great deal of childhood trauma really be considered my favorite bedtime story? The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain brought me joy and terror in equal measure before I turned five years old. This wasn’t the full novel, but a one-hour, full-cast abridgement from Fisher Price, complete with sound effects. Like, say, the footsteps of Injun Joe as he climbed a rickety staircase to murder Tom and Huck! Or the sound of Injun Joe’s footsteps echoing through McDougal’s cave, where Tom and Becky were lost in the dark! Or the sound of Injun Joe stabbing a dude during a grave robbery! For some reason, when we visited the cave on Tom Sawyer Island at Disney World around that time, my dad thought it was hilarious to tell me we were lost and that Injun Joe was going to get me. Sometimes when they tell this story, my parents get to the part about me filling the theme park attraction with my wails of fear and have to pause to wipe away tears of mirth from their eyes. Jerks.” —Joel Cunningham
“I had different books from different parents that I remember fondly. My favorites that my mom would read my brother and me were Roald Dahl–and I am still traumatized by The Witches–that is some scary stuff! I will always remember, though, my dad reading the Amelia Bedelia and Fudge books to my brother and me, and how mad he got at both characters for being dumb or bratty. He’d get annoyed and skip pages but of course my brother and I were wise enough to catch on by that point and made him go back and cover what he’d skipped.” —Claire Zulkey
“My favorite childhood story was The Terrible Roar, which is a pretty old children’s book about this lion who makes everything disappear whenever he roars. I was practically addicted to it as a six-year-old (when my grandmother had a knee replacement and was trapped in bed, I made her read it to me twelve times a day or so.) I loved it because the pictures were extremely colorful, but mostly because I liked the idea that if I made enough noise I could make my older brother disappear. Which, of course, never happened.” —Jenny Grudziecki
“The Orphan Boy is an adaptation of an old Maasai legend about the planet Venus and its mysterious rhythms. It’s told from the perspective of an old herdsman who finds a magical boy named Kileken. He adopts the boy, and his life is transformed. Kileken provides comfort, companionship, and incredible bounties for the farm. In return for his many gifts, the orphan asks the herdsman only that he resist investigating the boy’s true origins. Well, you can guess how well that goes. It’s such a great story and the illustrations in this edition are phenomenal and rich. I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in astronomical legend, or in the unique culture of the Maasai people.” —Becky Ferreira
What’s your favorite children’s bedtime story?
“Besides thinking that ants lived inside (and operated) the car radio, and that hammerhead sharks spawned in the community pool filter, one of my long-held erroneous beliefs as a child was that if I could only climb into the television, I’d be able to see where all these cereal commercials and sitcoms originated from. Well, thankyouverymuch Don Freeman (of Corduroy fame) for writing the one children’s book that was exactly about this topic. I speak (reverently) of The Paper Party—a little unknown 1974 paperback picture book where a young boy named Jory watches television alone in the basement while his parents host a dinner party upstairs. Before he knows it, a clown from his favorite show “The Dinky Donks” is leaning out of the television screen and beckoning him up a small red ladder that he has placed in front of the TV set. Jory climbs into the television, walks past house-sized cereal boxes, an array of blinding, colorful lights, and directly into his regularly-scheduled program where he is honored at a party where everything is made of paper—the giant stars, the snow that falls halfway through the party, and the big papier-mache cake with cotton frosting that is cut with scissors. Eventually, Jory runs home where the TV is once again just a TV and his dog Peetza is waiting for him, BUT HE IS FOREVER CHANGED. I don’t know if this book is more Stephen King or C.S. Lewis or Electric Kool-Aod Acid Test, but I could not get enough of it. I still can’t. I gave it to my son a few years ago, with the hopes his mind would be blown, but he didn’t get it. I think I’m going to have to steal it back. Okay. I just did. I just stole a book from my child.” —Whitney Collins
“My favorite bedtime story as a child was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. The story focuses on an intrepid, high-maintenance mouse who proves the old adage “if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile.” After receiving a cookie from a little boy, the mouse asks for a plethora of related favors. As a child I remember thinking to myself, that is one brazen mouse! To have the audacity, as a mouse, to ask a human being for all these favors? It’s mind-boggling! Although I was three, so I probably articulated those feelings by asking if I could have a cookie. My mom and I grew more incredulous after each outrageous request. “The mouse is now asking to be read a story? That mouse has some nerve.” Looking back, it’s possible my mom wasn’t really all that upset with the mouse’s moxie, she was probably just being a dedicated storyteller, but I certainly didn’t appreciate the mouse’s cavalier attitude. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, or the adult equivalent If a Friend Asks You to Help Them Move, proves there’s no such thing as an easy favor.” —Josh Sorokach
“When I was a toddler my dad used to read me Amelia Bedelia books before I went to bed—until my mom noticed that he was changing the story and A.B. was “going nuts and killing Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.” (My parents instilled in me an early sense of sarcasm.) My mom took over reading duties and we read Madeline so many times that I memorized it and would fool people into thinking I could read by reciting the lines holding the book in front of me. Still do have it memorized—In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines…” —Lauren Passell
“The bedtime book I loved best was The Sneetches and Other Stories. My dad would do the most amazing voice for Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the huckster figure in a parable of tolerance that largely missed its mark with me (I just hated those snotty star-belly Sneetches.) The “other stories” part of the book included Too Many Daves, a hilarious two-pager about a woman who named every one of her many sons Dave. The story is mostly just a long list of suggested alternative names, including the endlessly awesome Oliver Boliver Butt. But all was not well in Seussville, and there was a worm in this story collection’s apple: What Was I Scared Of, which, until I just googled it, had stuck in my memory as The Pants With Nobody in Them. This dark tale follows a cute little Seuss creature who keeps running into a ghostly pair of sentient pants, which he first fears but eventually befriends. HOLY CRAP, did those pants ever scare me!” —Melissa Albert
“My favorite childhood bedtime story was an illustrated version of The Bremen Town Musicians. Don’t ask me what the story was about. I’m assuming it took place in a town called Bremen. The only thing I can remember about it (and the reason I loved it so much) was for one double-page rendering of a group of thieves eating dinner. I remember the drawings made the food look so amazing. There were eggs, steak, sausages, cheese, grapes… I just remember it making me really hungry.” —Josh Perilo
“One of my favorite bedtime stories growing up was the Little House on the Prairie series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Listening to the adventures of Ma and Pa Ingalls and their children always made me drowsy—not only thanks to my father’s soothing voice, but because life on the frontier just seemed so tiring. All of the grueling day-to-day chores—from washing clothes to hunting, from churning butter to tending the farm—sounded absolutely exhausting. As a six year old, pondering the idea of chopping wood outside in the cold made my cozy warm bed seem even more comfortable. I loved learning about life on the prairie, but I also loved not having to experience it.” —Molly Schoemann-McCann
“Can a book that contributed to a great deal of childhood trauma really be considered my favorite bedtime story? The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain brought me joy and terror in equal measure before I turned five years old. This wasn’t the full novel, but a one-hour, full-cast abridgement from Fisher Price, complete with sound effects. Like, say, the footsteps of Injun Joe as he climbed a rickety staircase to murder Tom and Huck! Or the sound of Injun Joe’s footsteps echoing through McDougal’s cave, where Tom and Becky were lost in the dark! Or the sound of Injun Joe stabbing a dude during a grave robbery! For some reason, when we visited the cave on Tom Sawyer Island at Disney World around that time, my dad thought it was hilarious to tell me we were lost and that Injun Joe was going to get me. Sometimes when they tell this story, my parents get to the part about me filling the theme park attraction with my wails of fear and have to pause to wipe away tears of mirth from their eyes. Jerks.” —Joel Cunningham
“I had different books from different parents that I remember fondly. My favorites that my mom would read my brother and me were Roald Dahl–and I am still traumatized by The Witches–that is some scary stuff! I will always remember, though, my dad reading the Amelia Bedelia and Fudge books to my brother and me, and how mad he got at both characters for being dumb or bratty. He’d get annoyed and skip pages but of course my brother and I were wise enough to catch on by that point and made him go back and cover what he’d skipped.” —Claire Zulkey
“My favorite childhood story was The Terrible Roar, which is a pretty old children’s book about this lion who makes everything disappear whenever he roars. I was practically addicted to it as a six-year-old (when my grandmother had a knee replacement and was trapped in bed, I made her read it to me twelve times a day or so.) I loved it because the pictures were extremely colorful, but mostly because I liked the idea that if I made enough noise I could make my older brother disappear. Which, of course, never happened.” —Jenny Grudziecki
“The Orphan Boy is an adaptation of an old Maasai legend about the planet Venus and its mysterious rhythms. It’s told from the perspective of an old herdsman who finds a magical boy named Kileken. He adopts the boy, and his life is transformed. Kileken provides comfort, companionship, and incredible bounties for the farm. In return for his many gifts, the orphan asks the herdsman only that he resist investigating the boy’s true origins. Well, you can guess how well that goes. It’s such a great story and the illustrations in this edition are phenomenal and rich. I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in astronomical legend, or in the unique culture of the Maasai people.” —Becky Ferreira
What’s your favorite children’s bedtime story?