As you read in our first blog post, the world of Night Buddies started out as original bedtime stories shared between father and son and then turned into the 5-time-award winning children’s book series that it is today.
In this blog we will talk about some ways you can create bedtime stories with your children. These stories can be about sweet moments you’ve shared with your kids or things they remember doing with a favorite relative or best friend. This fun and inventive activity will help deepen your relationship with your children and create lasting memories. So why not give it a try!
First, start off with the characters. The main character can be anything or anyone your child identifies with. The main character in your bedtime stories can be your child herself or himself , just like John in the Night Buddies books! Feel free to make up a small cast of characters. Fill the story with characters your child is fond of. The cast should be full of friends or pets or stuffed animals, like Crosley the red crocodile! Your child will love making up scenarios that get their day-to-day friends or pets into wacky situations.
Next, pick a setting. It can be in outer space or maybe even a far off island. Are your characters trying to travel the world? Are the characters spending the day at the best amusement park in town? The setting can be anywhere. Your child probably already has the perfect place in mind.
Finally, come up with a theme or genre and each night lead the characters into small, silly situations and conflicts. Are your characters explorers hunting for treasure? Are they detectives solving mysteries? Are your characters trying to lasso the moon? A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning says who the story is about and where and when it happened, the middle says what happened, and the end is how the story finishes up.
Best of luck to you and your child as you spend bedtime exploring the world you’ve created with your rag-tag characters!