What Grandpa Told Me: Bedtime Stories for Kids

Tonight Leo has knocked over Grandpa's jar of marbles, and they've rolled into every corner of the room. He feels like he wrecks everything he touches. So Grandpa tells him how the night sky got its stars, back when somebody dropped the whole lot at once.

A story for any child who's made a mess and feels terrible about it, and for the grown-up helping them pick up the pieces.

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.

Coyote and the Stars comes from the Navajo (Diné) people, who tell of how the stars were placed in the sky. In the old story, a careful maker, First Woman, or sometimes Black God, hangs the stars one by one in patterns to guide the people, until Coyote, who could never wait for anything, flings the whole bag into the night and scatters them everywhere. It's a story for why the sky is full of more stars than anyone could count, and why a great river of them, the Milky Way, spills across the dark. We've kept Coyote's impatience and the careful patterns he lost, and told it with no one punished.

Tonight Leo is counting the sleeps until Mum comes home, and he doesn't feel like doing much of anything. So Grandpa sets a small brown bulb on the table and tells him an old story: a mother who could make the whole world grow, the daughter she loved, and where all the flowers go when winter comes.

Where the flowers go in winter is one of the oldest questions, and the Greeks answered it with a story about a mother and a daughter. The mother, Demeter, made everything grow. Her daughter, Persephone, spent part of each year below the ground and part of it above, and the world went cold while she was gone and bloomed again when she came back. It was written down as the Homeric Hymn to Demeter more than two and a half thousand years ago. The old myth has darker corners, a kidnapping, a god of the underworld, a bargain over a pomegranate, and we have left all of those out. What we kept is its heart: a daughter who goes down to look after the sleeping seeds, a mother who waits, and a spring that always comes back.

A bedtime story for children about that sinking feeling when you try something over and over, keep failing, and start to think you're just no good at it.

At the park, Leo couldn't get across the monkey bars. Everyone else could. By bedtime he has given up on himself, until Grandpa points to a web on the dark window and tells him about a tired king, a little spider, and a thread of silver that just would not catch.

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.

The King and the Spider is the old Scottish legend of Robert the Bruce and the spider, first written down by Sir Walter Scott about two hundred years ago and told the world over ever since. It is the story behind the old saying "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again": a defeated king hides in a cave and watches a spider try, and fail, and try again to throw the first thread of its web across the dark.

Tonight, Leo can't settle. At playtime his friends wouldn't let Oscar into their game, and Oscar spent it alone by the wall, and it has left Leo with a funny feeling in his tummy that won't go away. So Grandpa tells him about a single red mitten, lost in the snow, and the cold little animals who come knocking at it one after another, each asking the very same thing: is there room for one more?

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.

About the tale: The Mitten, or Рукавичка, is a beloved Ukrainian folktale first written down in the 1800s and still told to children today, about a lost mitten that stretches to make room for every cold creature who asks to come in from the snow.

Leo can't stop thinking about tomorrow, so Grandpa tells him about a little hare who believed he had to hold up the whole sky, all by himself, or it would come crashing down. 

He pushed and propped and never rested, until the night he finally let go. 

A gentle story for the child whose worries won't switch off at bedtime, and a quiet reminder that some things hold themselves up. 

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.

About The Tale: The fear that the sky might fall is a very old one. It comes from a Chinese story more than two thousand years old, about a man from the land of Qi who worried so much that the sky would fall that he could no longer eat or sleep. It is told in the Taoist classic the Liezi, written down around the 5th century BC. In the old story, a friend calms him by explaining the sky cannot fall. Our little hare, who tried to hold the sky up all by himself, is our own.

A children's bedtime story about bad dreams, inspired by the old shadow-puppet theatre of Java and Bali. Last night, Leo had a bad dream, and tonight he keeps finding reasons not to go up to bed. By the lamp in the front room, his grandpa tells him about an old shadow show from across the sea, a giant on a white sheet, and the girl who once stepped behind it. 

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.

About the tale: shadow-puppet theatre is real, and very old. In Java and Bali, in Indonesia, a puppeteer called a dalang has brought figures cut from leather to life as shadows on a lamplit screen for more than a thousand years, a tradition UNESCO honours as a masterpiece of human heritage. The giant and the little shadow-maker are our own, told in the spirit of that lamplit art.

A children's bedtime story about big anger, and about not being alone in it.

Grandpa finds Leo under the kitchen table. He doesn't say calm down, and he doesn't say it was only a drawing. He just sits down on the floor beside him, close enough to talk, and tells him about a little dragon who could breathe fire.

The little dragon had a clever trick: whenever the anger came, he would roar it all out, the bigger the roar the better. His toast, his kite, his birthday cake... and the anger, still there every time. Until one quiet evening, with one small candle, he found another way to breathe.

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.  

About the tale: this little dragon is our own, but the idea inside is old and true. In the 5th century, the Buddhist teacher Buddhaghosa wrote that a person who grabs a burning coal to throw at someone else gets burned first. Researchers who study anger have since found the same thing: roaring it all out tends to feed the fire, not put it out, while a slow, calm breath helps it settle. We gave that idea to a small dragon, and a grandpa who knows that the first thing a big feeling needs is someone to sit beside you.

A children's bedtime story about feeling small, inspired by a famous West African tale of a hat with two colors. 

Leo came home from the birthday party with a storm on his face: he did his best jump ever, and the new boy jumped right over it. On purpose, Leo is sure. On the front steps at dusk, his grandpa tells him about two best friends, one road, and the finest hat that ever walked between them. 

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.

About the tale: this retells a famous Yoruba teaching story from West Africa, in which a hat with two colors sets two best friends quarreling, each one certain of what he saw. In the oldest versions, the trickster Eshu wears the hat on purpose to test the friends; our traveler simply likes his hat that way. We kept the road, the two sides, and the laughter, and retold the rest for ages 4 to 8.

A children's bedtime story about losing a pet, inspired by the old country custom of telling the bees. 

Leo's goldfish Captain died this morning, and the little stone castle in his bowl is too still tonight. At the kitchen table, his grandpa tells him about a beekeeper's house with one strange rule, a hive that went quiet, and the small brave walk that brought the humming back. 

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them. 

About the tale: behind the little cricket stands an old Zen story from Japan. A student asks the master how long mastery will take. "Ten years," says the master. "And if I try twice as hard?" "Twenty years." We gave the riddle to a cricket learning the evening song, and retold the rest for ages 4 to 8.

A children's bedtime story about being too excited to sleep, inspired by an old Chinese parable about trying to hurry what grows in its own time. 

Tomorrow, for the first time, Leo is going to the sea, and one more sleep feels far too long. In the garden at dusk, his grandpa tells him about a little squirrel, and the one golden apple that was worth a whole summer's wait.

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.

About the tale: the teaching behind the golden apple is the old Chinese story of the farmer who tugged on his rice sprouts to make them grow faster, told by the philosopher Mengzi (Mencius) around 300 BC. "Pulling up sprouts to help them grow" is still a Chinese saying for hurrying what cannot be hurried. Our squirrel and his apple carry the same lesson, retold for ages 4 to 8.