{"id":123793,"date":"2025-09-06T19:00:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T19:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/123793\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T19:00:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T19:00:22","slug":"the-boring-book-aiming-to-send-children-to-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/123793\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘boring’ book aiming to send children to sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"

A “boring” children’s book aims to put youngsters to sleep before they reach its ending.<\/p>\n

The book is the idea of Will Hackett-Jones, from Needham Market, Suffolk, who struggled to get his daughter Katie to sleep during a long-haul flight and so came up with the idea of telling her a dull bedtime story.<\/p>\n

After it worked, he thought it could be an opportunity to help others, so he wrote The Old Wooden House \u2013 a story with no plot or excitement.<\/p>\n

Now living in St Petersburg, Russia, Mr Hackett-Jones said it had successfully worked on other children, but not many knew the ending as they had already fallen asleep.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Katie managed to fall asleep after her father told her a dull story during their flight [Contributed]<\/p>\n

The 45-year-old said it had been “a case of desperation” during a flight to New Zealand with Katie.<\/p>\n

“I just thought I’ll whisper something really boring to her and see if it sends her to sleep, and it did. It was amazing,” he said.<\/p>\n

“After that I tried it a few more times in New Zealand on my daughter’s various cousins, and it worked every time, and I thought there was a book in this.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Will Hackett-Jones has tested his new book on a few children as well as his wife, and it proved successful [Contributed]<\/p>\n

Mr Hackett-Jones, who had always wanted to write, added: “I try to lean into it and just say, have your exciting books, your dragons, all that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

“But ultimately you want to be able to go downstairs and have a glass of wine with your other half. You don’t want to be upstairs reading to the kids for six hours. It’s bedtime, after all.<\/p>\n

“So have the fun book and then the calm-down book.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Old Wooden House has been released in both English and Russian [Contributed]<\/p>\n

The author, who read Russian studies at university, has lived in the country since 2003.<\/p>\n

He later set up a translation business, but it “ground to a halt” when the war with Ukraine began.<\/p>\n

Mr Hackett-Jones, who is also working on a novel for adults, said that if the “delightfully dull bedtime story” was successful, he might think about writing a series of “sleepy books”.<\/p>\n

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