Top 30 Short Stories For Kids (Bedtime Stories)

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Most children find one or two stories that they love & want to listen/read them over & over again. Short stories with only a few characters, an easy setting, and a theme are the simplest to recollect.

In fact, it also helps kids enhance their literacy skills. Simple 3 and 4 letter words are put together to make such stories. they would be heard, comprehended, and skim by the kid with ease.

Short Stories for Kids
Short Stories for Kids

We have categorized these stories as

  • Short Stories
  • Moral Stories
  • Inspirational Stories
  • Bedtime Stories (The Most favourite one)
  • Adventure Stories 
  • Funny Stories
  • Indian Folk Tales
  • Fairy Tale
  • Horror Stories
  • Indian Mythological

Now let’s have some famous stories in each category.

Short Stories For Kids

The Prince And The Snake

The Prince and the Snake Story follows the journey of a prince whose body has been captured by a devilish snake and how he struggles to escape from the clutches of the snake.

Lion And The Mouse 

The Lion and the Mouse story explains a very popular proverb “Small acts of kindness will be rewarded greatly” and how anyone regardless of their size and appearance, can make a major impact in certain conditions. This tale can teach your child to appreciate others and create a helping nature in their minds.

Hare And The Tortoise

Everyone is aware of the Hare and the Tortoise story where the hare is defeated by the tortoise in a race proving a most popular proverb “Slow and steady wins the race”. But this story doesn’t end there as they eventually have another race! And it consists of a number of morals your kid should learn about.

Moral Stories

The Golden Goose

The Golden goose story is about a farmer who had a goose that was laying a golden egg daily. As the story goes on, it focuses on the themes of the greediness of the farmer and how it can ruin anyone’s life.

The Ant And The Grasshopper

The Ant and the Grasshopper story is based on the concept of working hard in the present situations for a prosperous and managed future and it features a hardworking ant and a lazy grasshopper. Through this tale, kids will understand the importance & benefits of hard work.

The Honest Woodcutter

The Honest Woodcutter story is based on the moral of the proverb “Honesty is the best policy” and involves a poor woodcutter who loses his axe in a deep river. It shows the children how they will get rewarded & appreciated if they live with honesty.

Inspirational Stories

Mahatma Gandhi 

Take a look at the biography of the Father of the Nation and revisit the struggles, he had to endure to help our nation become Independent. This biography will give kids a glimpse of great historical events that eventually resulted in our independence.

I Am Malala

I Am Malala is an inspiring story of Malala, a young woman activist who fought for the right to education for women in our neighboring country Pakistan. She became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, speaks leaps and bounds of her contributions and achievements & teaches kids all over the world that anyone can make a difference in society.

Wings of Fire

Wings of Fire can Teach your child the motivational ideologies of one of the greatest, the famous role models of our country with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s “Wings of Fire”. This book will you’re your children to understand Inspiration, Motivation, Patriotism, Knowledge, and much more.

Bedtime Stories

bedtime stories
bedtime stories

A City Rat And A Village Rat

A City Rat and a Village Rat story show the difference between the peaceful natures of living in villages versus the stressful nature of city life with rats as central characters. By observing the features of two different lifestyles, children can start to understand the life real world.

Princess And The Pea

The Princess and the Pea story by Hans Christian Andersen deal with a prince who is in search of a princess and finally how he gets to meet his princess.

5-Min Stories

The collection of stories features simple daily-life scenarios and will help to capture your child’s attention in 5 mins with its wit and storylines.

Adventure Stories

The Harry Potter Series

The harry potter is a 7-part series, by J K Rowling chronicles the life of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. This story predominantly features Harry’s struggle against the main antagonist of the series – Lord Voldemort.

The Famous Five

This is a classic collection of novels from Enid Blyton, featuring various adventure stories, This Story has the lead characters Julian, Dick and Anne, George and their dog Timmy face.

The Secret Seven

If your kid wants some more adventures to solve some crime, this would be perfect for your kid. Enid Blyton brings us the entertaining story of a secret society of kids looking to solve crimes, led by Peter with his sister Janet and their friends Jack, Colin, George, Pam, and Barbara along with their golden spaniel, Scamper.

Funny Stories

Foolish Imitation

This story involves the attempts of a foolish crow to imitate every aspect of a hawk. The main theme of this story is the importance of originality and explains to children that it’s better to be yourself than to copy others.

The Judge Monkey

The theme of this story features two cats fighting for a loaf of bread. This story proves the fact that it is better to share instead of possessive quarreling, this story would teach your kids to share the things.

More Funny Bedtime stories

Check out these interesting vast collections of stories filled with humor to make sure that your kid feels happy and light-hearted before bedtime.

Indian Folk Tales Stories

Indian Folk Tales Stories
Indian Folk Tales Stories

Panchatantra

This is a famous ancient collection of stories (originally in Sanskrit). The stories that form the Panchatantra always consist of animal characters and every story comes with a great moral. Pancha means Five, and Tantra means principle, and true to its name, there is good learning in every story.

Akbar & Birbal

Birbal who was an advisor in Emperor Akbar was known for his intellect, wit, and sense of humor. In all the stories, Akbar places a problem for Birbal, and Birbal cleverly finds a solution to the problem.

He wins hearts and admiration every day. Children can learn a lot about problem-solving skills, the Mughal dynasty, and Indian rulers too, through these stories.

Tenali Rama

Tenali Rama was the famous legendary Telugu poet & advisor of King Krishnadevaraya. Most of the stories involve the two characters, their adventures together, and how cleverly Tenali Raman solves the trickiest of issues.

It is a fun and educational read for every child and almost all stories come with a great moral.

Fairy Tale Stories

CinderellaSnow WhiteLittle Red Riding Hood

These are some of the most famous fairy tales of all time and the best part about these stories is that there are so many different versions, which let you revisit the same story in different manners.

Aesop’s Fables

Aesop’s Fables is a good collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE.

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Grimm’s Fairy Tales also known as the Children’s and Household Tales, is a collection of fairy tales first published in 1812 by the Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm.

Horror Stories

Horror-Stories
Horror-Stories

Goosebumps

With scary puppets, werewolves, monsters and so much more inside, Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine will send a chill down everybody’s spine. This collection of stories will help children understand the fact that the fearless can survive any kind of danger when they make the right decisions.

No Way Out

No Way Out story features Mike, who takes up the challenge of going inside a haunted house. It also features additional stories such as “The Price of Friendship” and “Hobgoblin Horror”.

More Horror stories

The horror story collection of stories covers a variety of themes and sub-genres, based on horror from renowned authors. It also features audio versions of the stories that you can play with your child.

Indian Mythological Stories

Krishna 

Krishna’s story may have been transmitted in its entirety orally for thousands of years before being put down in writing, kids love the mischievous nature of Krishna and love these stories. We see a number of cartoon shows based on Krishna’s Superpower.

Hanuman

Hanuman was the son of Vayu, the god of the wind, and Anjana. Hanuman has a lot of superpowers and you can imagine Hanuman as a Superman with awesome powers. Kids will definitely love the stories of Hanuman and even nowadays there is a lot of cartoons series based on these stories.

Ganesha

He is the son of Shiva and his consort Parvati, both of human form and yet he bears the head of an elephant, kids love the intelligence and stories about Ganesha.

1 Comment
  1. Lemons & Letters says

    Hi Priyanka, we are two independent authors and illustrators of children’s stories.

    For many years we have been writing and illustrating stories for children and putting them online for free: http://www.lemonsandletters.com

    Our goal is to strengthen the joy of reading and to support the creativity of the listeners.

    We would be very happy if you would link our page there as well. By doing so, you would help us make even more parents and children aware of our free stories.

    Best
    Chrissy and Tom

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