Bedtime stories for 5 year olds, plus a pick-your-path story to read tonight
What makes a good bedtime story for a five-year-old, a few classics worth reading, and an original pick-your-path bedtime story where your child chooses what happens.
Five is a wonderful age for bedtime stories. Five-year-olds can follow a real plot, they get jokes, they have strong opinions about what a character should do next, and most of them still want to be read to every single night.
Below: what tends to work at this age, a short list of books worth having on the shelf, and an original bedtime story where your five-year-old makes the choices. You can read it to them right now, on this page.
What five-year-olds want from a bedtime story
A problem to solve. At three, a story can be a list of animals saying goodnight. By five, most children want something to go wrong (a lost hat, a stuck kite, a dragon with a cold) and to see it put right.
Something funny. Five-year-olds are a great audience for silliness: wrong names, ridiculous mistakes, a grown-up character who gets everything backwards.
A little suspense, then a soft landing. A moment of “oh no!” is fine at bedtime. A cliffhanger isn’t. The best bedtime stories wind down toward the end, getting slower, quieter and cozier.
A say in it. This is the age of “I would have…” Let them argue with the story. Better still, let them steer it.
About ten minutes. One longer picture book or two short ones is plenty for most five-year-olds. If they’re asking for a fourth, the story probably isn’t the point anymore.
A few books worth having
There are thousands of good picture books for this age. These are some that many five-year-olds ask for again and again:
- Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel: short, gentle chapters, perfect for winding down.
- Owl Moon by Jane Yolen: a quiet night-time walk, made for reading slowly.
- Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems: a lost toy, a big feeling, and a very funny dad.
- The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt: letters from fed-up crayons; expect giggling.
- Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña: a bus ride with a grandmother who notices everything.
Tonight’s story: The Little Star Who Lost Her Way
This is a pick-your-path story. Read the beginning, then let your child choose at each fork by tapping (or pointing at) one of the choices. Every path ends with everyone asleep. Swap in your child’s name for Wren if you like, and their favorite toy for Mr. Buttons.
The beginning
Wren was almost asleep when something went tap, tap-tap on her window.
She sat up and hugged Mr. Buttons, her very old rabbit. Outside, bobbing just above the garden fence, was a star. A small one. It glowed a soft yellow, and it looked worried.
“Excuse me,” said the star, in a voice like a tiny bell. “I’m Nell. I was practicing a twinkle, and I twinkled so hard that I fell right out of the sky. Now I can’t find my spot, and every star needs her spot, or she can’t sleep.”
Wren opened the window. The night air smelled like grass. “We’ll help you,” she said. Mr. Buttons didn’t say anything, but he looked very helpful.
“Thank you,” said Nell. “There are two who might know the way. The Moon knows where every star goes. And the fireflies know every path from the ground to the sky.”
What should Wren do?
The Moon on the hill
Wren tiptoed out in her slippers, with Mr. Buttons tucked under her arm, and Nell floating beside her like a lantern. They climbed the hill behind the house, where the Moon was resting, round and silver, on top of the tallest tree.
“Hello, Moon,” whispered Wren. “This is Nell. She fell out of the sky.”
The Moon yawned an enormous, slow yawn. “Ah, Nell,” it said. “I wondered why there was a gap. Your spot is up past the clouds, just beside the star that looks like a teapot.”
“But how do we get up there?” asked Wren.
The Moon thought for a while. Moons think very slowly. “You could ride on my swing,” it said at last. “Or you could sing the stars’ song, and they’ll light up a path for you.”
What should they do?
The fireflies in the garden
Wren tiptoed out into the garden. Down by the flowerbed, a hundred fireflies were blinking on and off, on and off, like a sleepy town.
“Excuse me,” said Wren. “This is Nell. She fell out of the sky, and she needs to get home.”
The fireflies blinked very fast, which is how fireflies whisper. Then the biggest one floated up. “We can help,” she said. “We could make a ladder of lights, all the way up. Or we could ask the owl. She flies higher than anyone, and she owes us a favor.”
Mr. Buttons looked at the ladder idea. Then he looked at the owl idea. He couldn’t decide.
What should they do?
The Moon’s swing
The Moon lowered a silver swing on a long, long rope. Wren sat on it with Mr. Buttons on her lap, and Nell sat on her shoulder.
Up they went, slowly, past the chimney, past the treetops, past a cloud that smelled faintly of rain. The world below got smaller and quieter. Wren could see her house, with her own window still open.
At the very top, next to a star shaped exactly like a teapot, there was a little dark gap. Nell floated into it, and it fit her perfectly, like a foot in a warm sock. She glowed so happily that the teapot star glowed too.
“Goodnight, Wren,” she called. “I’ll twinkle at your window every night.”
The swing came down, gently, gently, and set Wren in her bed. She was asleep before her head touched the pillow. Mr. Buttons kept watch, as always.
Read it again and choose differently
The stars’ song
“I don’t know the stars’ song,” whispered Wren.
“Nobody does,” said the Moon. “You just hum whatever you hum when you’re sleepy.”
So Wren hummed the song her grandpa hums when he does the dishes. It went mmm-mm-mmm, mmm-mm-mmm. And one by one, the stars began to light up brighter, making a sparkling path up into the sky, like stepping stones across a river.
Nell zoomed up the path, twinkling all the way, and settled into the gap beside the teapot star. Then the whole sky twinkled at once, just for a second, as if every star was saying thank you.
Wren walked home down the hill, still humming. She climbed into bed, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and hummed herself right to sleep.
Read it again and choose differently
The firefly ladder
The fireflies lined up, one above the other, until there was a glowing ladder from the flowerbed to the clouds. Wren held Mr. Buttons tight and Nell floated just ahead.
Climbing a ladder of fireflies is tickly. Every rung giggles a little when you step on it.
At the top, above the clouds, the sky was quiet and enormous. Nell found her spot right away, a little star-shaped gap next to a star that looked like a teapot, and she slid into it with a happy sigh. “Home,” she said. “Thank you, Wren. Thank you, fireflies.”
The fireflies carried Wren back down, rung by rung, slower and slower, and tucked her into bed with a blink. Outside her window, one small star twinkled, just for her. Wren smiled, and closed her eyes.
Read it again and choose differently
The owl’s ride
The owl came down from the oak tree without a sound. She was soft and grey and very polite. “Climb aboard,” she said. “Hold on to the feathers, not the ears.”
Wren climbed on, with Mr. Buttons in front and Nell lighting the way. They flew in great, slow circles, up and up, over the sleeping town, over the dark river, until the clouds were below them like a field of snow.
“There,” said Nell, and she pointed to a little gap beside a star shaped like a teapot. She twinkled into it, and the gap was gone. The sky looked complete again.
The owl flew Wren home in one long, quiet glide, and dropped her softly onto her bed. “Goodnight,” hooted the owl. “Goodnight,” mumbled Wren, already dreaming of flying.
Read it again and choose differently
Your own ending
Did your child want something else to happen? Maybe Mr. Buttons should have flown up too, or the teapot star should have poured tea. Ask them: “What would you have done?” Then tell that version tomorrow night.
Why choices work so well at five
Choosing what happens gives a five-year-old a reason to listen closely: they need to know what’s going on to make a good choice. It also gives them a little control at the end of a day when most things were decided for them. And it’s a gentle way to talk about consequences (“what do you think would have happened if Wren had…?”) without any lecture at all.
You don’t need a special book for it. Any story you tell can stop at a fork: “Does the hedgehog ask for help, or try on her own?” For more ways to do it, see our 50 bedtime story ideas.
Where Branchlings fits
We make Branchlings, an app that does this every night: your child dreams up the story, picks who comes along, and decides what happens at every fork, or adds their own idea. For five- and six-year-olds, there are three choices at each fork, and when the storyteller voice reads the story, the words light up as it goes. Branchlings writes each story for your child’s age and paints every page, and around bedtime the stories wind down to goodnight.
One honest note: the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests keeping screens out of the last hour before sleep, and an app with pictures is a screen. So read Branchlings together earlier in the evening, and let a paper book finish the night. (If you read tonight’s story above from your phone, the screen is yours, not theirs: dim it, keep it out of their eyeline, and put it away when the story ends.) Our bedtime routine for 4 and 5 year olds shows how it all fits together.