A bedtime story is the tale read to a child before sleep. The same one, most nights, and no skipping pages.
It does a great deal more than settle a child, since being read to daily is one of the strongest predictors of later reading ability, which is why every literacy campaign starts there. The ritual matters as much as the book. Children detect abridgement instantly and object. There is a light figurative use for any comforting and improbable account of something.
1nounbedtime storyA story read to a child before going to sleep.
“He never missed a bedtime story, whatever time he got in.”
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Babies & Growing Up
First appears in chapter 36 of A Man Called Ove.
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