I built a small bedtime story tool

At bedtime, our (soon-to-be) four-year-old usually wants to make up her own stories. She’ll tell me what the story should be about — a character, a rough plot — and we build it together. I type, she watches, interrupts, changes things, and decides when it feels right.

So I made a tiny story builder to support that.

She tells me what the story should be about, we type it in together, and it generates a short bedtime story - both the text and an audio narration. If she likes it, we listen to it being read aloud. If she doesn’t, we regenerate and try again. Sometimes she just wants to hear the same one again.

Supports both English and Hindi

We’ve been trying to teach her Hindi, and lately she’s been more curious about it. Stories help. She hears the words in context, picks up little phrases, and it doesn’t feel like learning. It’s just part of the story.

You can also generate some intro music

It’s a short, gentle background track. Nothing fancy, but it helps set the mood. Sometimes it feels like a little theme song for the story we just made up.

It’s optional, and we don’t always use it, but when we do it adds a small “okay, story time is starting now” moment that she really likes.

Sometimes I don’t even play the audio. I read the story myself for inspiration and then narrate it to her in my own words. There are only so many original stories Papa can come up with before they all start sounding suspiciously familiar!

I’ve added it to my phone’s Home Screen, so it feels like a little app. Every now and then we just pull it up, make a story on the fly, and that’s it. If we end up liking one, you can even download the audio and play it again later.

It’s still very much an experiment. Just something fun to do together before sleep - make the “let’s make up a story” moment a little easier and a little more playful!

If you’re curious, it’s here: https://story.curiousmints.com