The 14 Best Braille Bedtime Stories

Bedtime stories are not only fun and relaxing, but they’re also an effective way to become closer with your child. Books play a crucial role in stimulating a child’s imagination – while giving them good dream material – and they’ve also been shown to calm down a busy child, as well as support the development of communication skills.

It can be a challenge to get a small child interested in books, especially if they have problems reading, or cannot see the fun, bright illustrations. Fortunately, there are many children’s books available in braille, as well as a great selection of tactile books.

Need a few suggestions for the best braille children’s books? You’ve come to the right place! We’ve collected our favourite braille and tactile books that provide interesting and varied textures, they’re a great way to introduce a blind or visually impaired child to literacy!

1. DK Braille: Animals

This book teaches children about koalas, zebras, elephants, lions, and more. Not only does it combine large print and braille, but the animal pictures are also tactile.

2. Touch and Feel: Farm

This book is part of a DK series with large photographs, textures, and print. Kids will learn the name of the animal and the letter each start with while you read through each page, this book is great for learning about farm animals.

3. I Count to Ten

Starting with one teddy bear and ending with ten happy faces, I Count to Ten teaches children to count in ten in braille and print.

4. Black Book of Colours

This unconventional book allows blind readers to experience the richness of colour without sight, but rather through the touch of raised lines and the vivid descriptions of colours.

5. I Love to Eat

This board book is about mealtime and all the pieces involved including bibs, chairs, and more. It’s durable and has large tactile areas for little hands to feel.

6. Fun Foods with Bess and Friends

This innovative children’s book contains large print, braille, and scratch and sniff graphics for the ultimate multi-sensory experience. It introduces children to ten popular foods, ranging from pizza to peaches.

7. The Very Hungry Caterpillar: Touch and Feel Picture Book

An inclusive take on the storybook classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It tells the story of metamorphoses in a manner that is sweet and easy for young children to understand and is creatively designed using 34 different textured materials.

8. That’s Not My Dragon

This book is so silly and fun, with lines like ‘That’s not my dragon, its ears are too fluffy.’ As you can imagine, the idea here is that each page has a dragon with a different tactile feature that makes it ‘not my dragon’ At the end of the book, we find our dragon!

9. Animal Kisses

This is a very sweet book about all the different types of kisses, like velvety cow kisses and sticky dog kisses. The illustrations are very bright with plain high-contrast background, so they’re great for low vision, and the textures are fun and varied.

10. Wet Pet, Dry Pet, Your Pet, My Pet!

You can’t go wrong with a classic from Dr. Suess. This book is filled with crazy rhymes to enchant children and has tactile elements throughout the book.

11. The Adventures of Mary Kate & Ashley

With braille, readers will readily identify with Mary Kate and Ashley, the trench coat twins, as they solve mysteries and embrace everyday life.

12. Little House on the Prairie

This is a classic bestselling series now available in braille, which is about a pioneer girl and her family in the 1870s. Her adventures come to life in this easy-to-read collection.

13. Harry Potter

No list of the best children’s books is ever complete without the Harry Potter series, right? This captivating series tells the life of a young wizard and is enjoyed by readers of all ages. The entire series of seven novels have been translated into braille.

14. The Night Before Christmas

Loved by children of all ages, it tells the story of Santa’s descent from the North Pole, loaded with gifts. The braille translation of this famous children’s book is sure to put children of all abilities in the holiday spirit!

All these books can be purchased through Amazon and most have simple text and Braille options, you could also create your own tactile book or if the text is simple enough you could easily braille it yourself. Many of these books and more are also available through the National Braille Press with the braille already included. You may also be interested in Why Sleep Audio for Kids Is Becoming So Popular | Sleep Matters Club (dreams.co.uk) and our range of kid’s beds.