Shelf pick
The Little Night Train
A careful little train carries the last dry blanket to Fox Kit before bedtime.
Ages 1–3109 picture books
A story for every bedtime.
Every book is ready to read together, and every one is free in Lil' Phil. Add the ones that suit your child and they'll be waiting on their home screen tonight.
5 books
Wind-down stories
Soft endings for the last story of the night.
3–5A Pocket for the Moon
A careful attempt to bring the moon home leads to a small bedtime treasure.
1–3Last Light in the Harbour
A dog accompanies the harbour keeper as the working pier settles.
3–5The Hallway Sounds Too Big
A child's caregiver steps out to fetch a drink at bedtime.
3–5The Last Star Bun
A child visiting an all-night bakery with a carer wants its last star-shaped bun.
29 books
Funny stories
For giggles, then read it again.
Shelf pick
Hold Still, Book!
A flea photographer wants one family portrait, but every page turn scatters a different relative out of the frame.
Ages 3–5
3–5The Teeniest Tollkeeper
Pip the beetle charges every traveller one funny noise to cross a twig bridge.
3–5The Sofa Sneezed
A child finds the sofa's ticklish seam.
3–5Goat Rings for Everything
Goat has been asked to ring the bell when the village fair opens.
5–7The Fork Wants Soup
The kitchen drawer has demands.
3–5The Badly Behaved Echo
A child asks a cave echo for a sensible hello.
3–5My Tail Won't Hide
The family dog wants to be impossible to find.
3–5Rolo's Rattly Trousers
Rolo's pockets will not keep a birthday secret.
3–5A Cloud in the Laundrette
A muddy cloud wants to dry off.
5–7Professor Ink's First Class
Professor Ink has eight arms and very low expectations of the human class.
3–5The Giant's Birthday Whisper
The meadow's tiniest birthday singers need a way to reach one enormous ear.
3–5Captain Me-First
Captain Me-First rushes to lead the parade before hearing the whole job.
3–5Shh, Nib's Got a Trumpet!
Help Nib sneak one very noisy birthday present to the party.
3–5The Teeter-Totter Picnic
Every new picnic guest changes which end goes up.
3–5The Basket Captain
A child wants to captain the laundry basket all the way to the garden picnic.
3–5Here Comes Zaza!
Zaza the young goat believes every entrance deserves an announcement.
3–5Cone Says STOP
In the play shed, a small toy cone has become very good at stopping things.
3–5My Hat Is on Holiday
A talking sunhat refuses to go on a head: it is on holiday.
3–5The Page-Turn Band
A paper triangle and a sock puppet have organised a silent concert.
3–5Rip, Roar, Encore!
A child wants a roaring paper lion for the windowsill puppet show.
3–5The Enormous Echo
Two young marmots each claim the echo in a rocky valley.
3–5The Rhyme Machine Is Sneezing
A child wants their homemade party machine to produce a cake.
1–3The Squeaky Beach Cart
A child returns borrowed beach toys to the hire hut in a squeaky cart.
3–5The Museum Is Being Very Sensible
A child wants to find one funny thing in a very sensible museum.
3–5The Robot Who Said Later
A child builds a toy robot to help start a birthday party, but its stuck slider answers every cue with 'Later!' Balloons, ribbons and a very impatient party hat pile up.
3–5The Coat-Cupboard Monsters
A child wants a wonderfully spooky shadow show before supper.
3–5I Made One Sandcastle
A child is determined to finish one perfect sandcastle and keeps concentrating on its front door.
3–5The Umbrella That Grew Legs
Rain surprises a child carrying a paper dragon to the library.
3–5Hats Off, Achoo!
A child needs one sensible hat for the library picnic.
15 books
Adventures
Small heroes, big journeys, home by bedtime.
Shelf pick
The Kite That Needed a Tail
A stubborn kite, a very serious wagtail, and a child who notices what is missing.
Ages 3–5
3–5A Door in the Clouds
Pip follows an impossible peep to a tiny cloud learning how to fly.
3–5Catch the Picnic Cloth!
A gust steals the picnic cloth before lunch.
5–7Moss Street's Folded Map
A folded map sends a child looking for a rehearsal that is everywhere at once.
3–5Mallow and the Rolling Drum
Mallow borrows a drum before the brake is ready.
5–7Tansy and the Too-Perfect Boat
Tansy's splendid regatta boat has something living under its deck.
3–5Dig Here!
The dog needs one empty hole.
3–5A Tiny Seat at the Concert
An ant gets the best seat in the fair and finds a very small way to help.
3–5Pip and the Midnight Knock
A midnight knock sounds enormous under Pip's tiny bridge.
5–7The Long Way for Peaches
A child wants to deliver peaches to Grandad before the best ones are eaten.
3–5The Map with the Orange Smudge
A child wants to make a treasure map for the courtyard picnic.
3–5The Dark Makes Room
A child has helped paint a glowing underwater mural for the afternoon puppet show but hesitates at the dark stage curtain.
3–5The Quietest Captain
A child wants to direct a fleet of toy boats across a windy model-boating pond, but shouted instructions blow away.
3–5Captain Patch and the Great Spool Chase
A child in a homemade Captain Patch cape wants to save a long strip of bunting for the community craft-room window.
3–5The Scarf's Big Day
A child wants an adventure and gives a bright scarf a new job at each turn: river, sail, comet tail and tiny theatre curtain.
12 books
Animals and nature
Sleepy seas, singing hippos, snails and seeds.
Shelf pick
Tigers Don't Giggle
Tickle the tortoise, the hippo, the monkey and the elephant. Just don't tickle the tiger. Tigers don't giggle. Do they?
Read together
1–3The Sleepy Sea
A little whale listens as one small sea sound at a time becomes a chorus.
1–3Who's Still Awake?
A noise from the dark, a guess, a turn of the page, and one more farm animal tucked into bed.
1–3Five Seeds for the Empty Lot
A child adds one sunflower seed at a time to the bare patch beside the flats.
1–3Hello Goes Round
A dog starts a hello at the garden gate.
1–3A Bed for My Dog
A sleepy dog searches the picnic garden for a place to curl up.
1–3Dot Underfoot
A ladybird is hiding in the child's busy afternoon.
3–5The Wind Needs a Song
A quiet wind searches for the places that can give it a voice.
3–5The Muddy Welcome Mat
Five muddy visitors leave a wonderfully different trail to Snail's picnic.
3–5Hippo's Smallest Song
The pond band has saved its biggest drum for Hippo, who wants to play the tiny rain bells instead.
3–5Where Did My Shadow Go?
A child has taught their shadow a spectacular dance and wants to perform it.
3–5Can You Hear the Snail?
A child wants to hear what their garden snail sounds like at lunch.
30 books
Feelings and friends
Sharing, waiting, wobbles and making up.
Shelf pick
My Picnic Has Other Plans
A child has planned the perfect picnic: a crisp sandwich, a dry seat and one very tall banana tower.
Ages 3–5
3–5The Smallest Dragon
A small dragon finds the exact way to help on a rainy day.
3–5The Stomp Under the Table
A cross child drums under the kitchen table and discovers a parade of enormous dancing boots.
5–7The Patchwork Seat
Every spring a child and a grandparent sit on the old garden chair.
1–3My Hug Can Go Round Corners
A child invents an imaginary hug that stretches past a chair and curls around doorways.
3–5The Shadow Show
A child wants the biggest shadow in the courtyard show.
3–5The Tin Crab Wants a Friend
A toy tin crab wants to say hello, but its huge waving pincers startle the other toys.
1–3Our Secret Raspberry
A child and caregiver invent a spluttery raspberry hello.
3–5Three Taps for Later
Before a first morning at playgroup, a child and caregiver make a three-tap rhythm on a bench.
3–5Hedgehog's Hmph
Hedgehog's morning word is Hmph.
5–7The Boat That Remembered
An old toy boat has a whole sea of stories in its scratches.
3–5Nim and the Island Seed
Nim wants to plant an island seedling, one chosen splash at a time.
3–5The Apprentice Thundercloud
Pock practises thunder and discovers a different sort of weather worth making.
3–5Lulu's Borrowed Colours
Lulu changes colours all afternoon.
5–7The Two-Sided Drum
Two noisy clubs discover the beat between them.
5–7The Fort Comes With Us
Moving day can pack the blankets.
3–5The Grumble at the Parade
Tapir has come to see her niece lead the tiny beetle band, but all she does is grumble.
3–5Tortoise's Broken Wheel
Tortoise carries everyone's awkward parcels home from the morning market and dreams of taking her own enormous watermelon to the river picnic.
5–7The Maybe Machine
Kit wants to go to the neighbourhood sleepover, but has questions nobody seems to be asking.
3–5The Tune in Two Kitchens
A child wants Mum to be home for pancake breakfast, but Mum is working an early shift in a busy kitchen.
3–5Bell Can't Do Everything
Bell wants the play-shed band to sound wonderful.
3–5Flag's Fancy Flutter
Flag thinks she must flutter like the new streamers before she can join their party.
5–7The Chalk Road to My Door
At the new block's chalk afternoon, everyone draws a house beside the pavement road.
3–5Captain of the Clouds
A child wants to lead the park's make-believe weather parade as a cloud captain.
5–7Say It My Way
A child wants to introduce their own report at a community radio open day, but a toy announcer keeps muddling the child's name.
3–5The Longest Drawing
A child begins a chalk road for a toy bus.
3–5The Flag with the Window
A child wants a flag for the garden fort.
1–3Roll It Back!
A puppy wants someone to roll its ball back.
3–5A Part for Tessa
A child is preparing a puppet show when a quiet neighbour, Tessa, keeps returning to the stage door.
3–5When the Song Wouldn't Come
A child wants to sing at the garden show but thinks every song needs an enormous voice.
11 books
Everyday life
Puddles, babies, bread vans and a wobbly chair.
Shelf pick
A Box Big Enough for a Dinosaur
Spare cardboard becomes an obstacle course for one adventurous toy dinosaur.
Ages 3–5
3–5The Pavement Goes Squish
After warm rain, a child tries the courtyard's new noises: puddle squish, awning drip and a rushing gutter.
3–5The Bell on the Bread Van
A child helps an aunt deliver bread, but the van's bell falls silent.
3–5The Pumpkin Won't Fit
A child has grown a long, narrow pumpkin, but it lies crossways across the garden gate.
1–3Round Comes My Wave
Round the carousel, a familiar wave always comes back into view.
1–3A Mark for the Dog
A toddler wants the family dog included on the household height chart.
1–3Who Makes That Racket?
A child hears a wonderful breakfast racket through the flats and wants to make one too.
3–5The Wobble Chair
A child wants their favourite old chair to be the captain's seat in a pretend ship, but its wobble tips every cushion overboard.
1–3A Hello for Every Baby
A child wants to greet every baby at a baby playgroup.
1–3The Tunnel Says Hello
A toddler waits at the end of a soft play tunnel, eager to greet whoever comes through.
3–5I Want to Play the Whistle
A child loves the cosy feeling of sucking their thumb and also wants to give the starting whistle for a pretend garden train.
7 books
Learn and notice
Stories that ask your child to look closely.
Shelf pick
My One-Seed Jungle
A child wants a jungle for a toy monkey but has only one pot and one climbing bean.
Ages 3–5
3–5The Letter Laundry
A child pegs up an alphabet's worth of absurd washing: apron, boot, cap and more.
1–3Blow, Little Cloud!
A puff-sized cloud is stranded above an empty birdbath.
1–3Where's Pebble?
Otter searches big and small, wet and dry, for one favourite pebble.
3–5The Wobble in My Tummy
A child has been waiting all week for the fair, so why does their tummy go biddle-bop at the gate?
5–7The Wobbliest Delivery
A child wants to send the allotment's first ripe apricot down a homemade track to Grandpa's picnic table.
3–5Every Way to Splash
At a shallow splash garden, a child wants to invent a splash nobody has tried.
Tonight's story is ready
Open Lil' Phil, link your child's tablet, and add Storytime to their home. New books arrive there as they're made.