MarytaleBy age
Stories by stage — preschool, kindergarten, first, second and third grade — sorted by how long a child will sit still, not by what they can understand.
The age on a story does not say what a child will understand. It says how long they will sit still and how many threads they can hold at once. A three-year-old listens for four minutes and asks for the same story again. A seven-year-old reads alone and closes the book if nothing has happened by the second page.
We split these pages by stage — preschool, kindergarten, and first, second and third grade — and not by year, because that is how the question gets asked in American English. We measured it: «bedtime stories for five year olds» is asked about seven hundred times a month, while «bedtime stories for kindergartners» is asked thirty-three thousand times. On the Polish and German pages of this site the same page runs by year, because there it is the other way round.
The stage is a hint, not a rule. A child who likes long stories will take one from the next stage up and be delighted; a child who tires early will take a shorter one and be just as happy. If you are choosing for the first time, look at the reading time under the title — it is more exact than any stage.
- Bedtime stories for preschoolBedtime stories for preschool: one character, one thing that happens, and an ending that needs no explaining.
- Bedtime stories for kindergartnersBedtime stories for kindergartners: long enough to feel like a real story, short enough to finish before the yawning starts.
- Stories for first gradersStories for first graders: more characters, more going on, and a choice the hero has to make alone.
- Stories for 2nd graders
- Stories for 3rd graders
By age
- Bedtime stories for preschool
- Bedtime stories for kindergartners
- Stories for first graders
- Stories for 2nd graders
- Stories for 3rd graders
Or browse by what the story is about
Frequently asked
- How do you decide the age for a story?
- By length, by how many characters there are, and by how many things a child has to keep in mind at once. We set the lower edge where a child still reaches the end — a story does not stop working because a child grows.
- Why stages and not ages in years?
- Because that is how American parents ask. «Stories for a five-year-old» is searched a few hundred times a month; «stories for kindergartners», tens of thousands. We do not translate another language's way of asking.
- What if my child wants a story from a different stage?
- Read it. The stage is there to help an adult choosing for the first time, not to fence anything off. The surest guide is the reading time printed under each title.