Welcome to Bedtime-Story™ . For The Busy Business-Parent.. Whimsical Stories for Children of All Ages Yahoo named Bedtime-Story.com the Number One Children's Story Site on the Web. Families Are Welcome... Read Through The Night, The Stories Are Friendly... (The Dragons Don't Bite)©

Bedtime-Story is designed to encourage literary and artistic creativity. We mentor, and provide editing as well as encouragement, to talented authors and artists whose works will undoubtedly influence young minds. Towards that end, we also strive for artistic synergy. An illustrator's work imparts visual depth to the author's tale, and the story helps to bring an illustrator's work to life.

Our primary goal is to promote literacy, and help instill a lifetime joy of reading.

Bedtime-Story supports and encourages a strong parent-child relationship. We select works for publication which are judged to be entertaining, with the intent of fostering a positive shared experience that will remain in the child's memory for years to come.

Besides, we like to read the stories ourselves...

Authors: Bedtime-Story requires its authors to think their stories through. Plots must make sense. Rules of basic grammar must be applied. Writing is expected to be cohesive, with the train of thought flowing smoothly from one paragraph to the next.

.

And because many of the tales are read as Bedtime-Stories, we request satisfying endings, which encourage pleasant dreams.

Lastly, the tale must be as pleasant for an adult to read as it is for a child to hear.

Stories Accepted For Inclusion Receive prominent exposure along with a short bio of the author/illustrator, live contact e-mail link, (and, if the book is in print, a hyperlink to the book's purchasing location*). *Family Friendly

A featured section on Bedtime-Story, entitled Stories Worth Talking About, is designed to assist individuals, families, psychologists, and educators to open a line of dialogue with children, family members, or often with their own hearts, about any event, any situation in life found deserving of our thoughtful contemplation.

Authors whose stories have been selected for inclusion in the Stories Worth Talking About section, have displayed the ability to quietly impart and encourage wisdom, sensitivity and understanding. Stories may touch on the loss of a princess, a parent, a friend, even a much loved pet. Characters may deal with a family's relocation, the sadness of leaving friends behind, children in foster homes, or families struggling to work things out. Stories selected for inclusion in this section are part of an exceptional, but more importantly, a healing collection of tales, which may be read and clearly understood by visitors as young as 6.

Illustrators requesting inclusion of their works will encounter similarly high expectations. At Bedtime-Story, illustrations are expected to not only compliment, but to concur with the story line. Characters and scenes should be portrayed as originally envisioned and intended by each Author. The world's best illustrators take the time to not only read a story, but to make themselves aware of subtle details and portray them accurately. We consider this the mark of a professional.

All of which helps explain why Bedtime-Story is considered the web's premiere children's story site.

When a representative work is accepted for online publication by Bedtime-Story, the qualifications of the submitting author or illustrator have been taken very seriously. If your work is as yet unpublished, our editors will work with you to make sure your work represents some of the best you are capable of producing. After all, your work is going to be seen by a lot of people, and the caliber of stories we publish reflects not only the quality of your workmanship, but ours as well.

There is no charge, either to the author, to the illustrator, or to Bedtime-Story visitors.

Since its inception, the costs to host, maintain, and provide webmastering services for Bedtime-Story.com have been underwritten in their entirety by the innovative and award-winning, but very small entity.

To date, Bedtime-Story editing and author mentoring continue to be provided by a series of volunteers who have kindly lent their assistance as their own time permitted.

Stories are professionally illustrated as a result of Bedtime-Story offering to showcase each artist's work, and provide a no charge link to that artist's (family friendly) online portfolio. In the absence of an illustrator for a particular tale, interim story illustrations are provided by our volunteers.

We have a rather good eye for talented authors and illustrators.

Bedtime-Story also benefits from excellent search engine placement. We've been around for quite a while and this is a very popular destination for parents with young children. (It's also pretty popular with grandparents).

The current economy has provided Bedtime-Story with both a challenge as well as a unique opportunity to become a part of the solution.

For example; Many of our editing volunteers were retired teachers who no longer have the luxury of donating their time. Likewise, many freelance illustrators also have their hands full, just trying to keep the lights on.

In order for our author's creative tales to achieve optimal presentation, we understand that those stories really do need to be properly illustrated. We're in the process of having additional tales professionally illustrated now.

We continue to shine the spotlight on the importance of literacy for America's children. Bedtime-Story will continue to add additional well written, creatively illustrated, free to read stories for children.

The internet allows us to work on a near real-time basis with authors, editors and illustrators located all over the world.

We're big fans of common sense layouts and user-friendly pages, without the gratutious insertion of unnecessary bells and whistles. A lot of those nifty add-ons are not viewable by all browsers, and a wide range of earlier browser versions still remain in active use today.

Bedtime-Story draws from a world-wide audience, thus we've found that pages designed for accessability by the widest possible audience are most appreciated by our visitors. Our goal is to continue to make these tales viewable on every single computer, every single tablet, and every single smart phone, regardless of brand or browser.

Bedtime-Story is a favorite of the larger traditional publishing houses. Some of those larger publishers, MacMillan/McGraw Hill, (pagelink) along with other education related groups, both domestic and abroad, recognize the worth of our high standards and have asked permission to incorporate tales from Bedtime-Story into their own teaching materials.

We think some of our tales are good enough to merit consideration to be made into movies.

Bedtime-Story carefully reviews and selects the most promising submissions, mentors authors and illustrators, provides editing, and then displays the newly ready for prime-time submissions of some truly talented authors and illustrators. We help get those tales in front of decision makers.

We'd like to have the opportunity to flag those stories (The Ragdoll would be one such example) which we believe especially merit thoughtful consideration for even wider distribution.

We continue to add to an ever growing list of absolutely wonderful bedtime stories to read and share, and the eternal gratitude of little kids (and their families) everywhere.

Bedtime-Story has won lots of recognition and awards. We invite you to explore the website.

Here are a couple of pages you might be interested in glancing at; Awards (and Kind Words), Letters (from Authors and Readers)

Our very favorite award is A great big smile and the words "Read it AGAIN!"

Send eMail to Bedtime-Story