A Cloud Bedtime Story: A Place to Rest the Shadow

This original cloud bedtime story gives you a complete tale to read aloud. A small cloud tries several resting places before finding a hillside that fits its wandering shadow. A short personalization note follows the ending, ready for an optional second telling.

A Place to Rest the Shadow

A small cloud had spent the morning crossing the valley. It had looked like a spoon over the village and a slipper above the mill. By afternoon it was tired of being compared with household objects.

"I would like somewhere to rest," it told the breeze.

The breeze carried it toward a tall hill. The cloud settled above the summit and looked down. Its shadow covered a shepherd's folded blanket. The shepherd looked up, moved the blanket into the sun and sat down again.

The cloud shifted. Its shadow shifted too, landing on the blanket once more. The shepherd moved again. After the third move, the cloud decided this was not restful for either of them.

It drifted toward the pond. There it could see its reflection, soft and round between the reeds. A duck paddled through the reflection and broke it into pieces. The pieces joined again behind her.

"You look comfortable," the cloud said.

"I am going somewhere," said the duck. "Very slowly."

The cloud stayed above the pond for a while, watching its own shape change at the edges. Then the breeze nudged it onward. Over the orchard, its shadow covered half a tree and left the other half bright. The cloud tried to become exactly tree-shaped, but one edge kept stretching.

"You need not fit the tree," said the breeze.

"I would like to fit somewhere."

Beyond the orchard lay a broad grassy hillside with a single path across it. Nobody had spread a blanket there. No roof divided the ground into neat squares. The cloud's shadow fell across the grass in a loose, uneven shape.

It fitted because there was nothing it needed to match. The cloud drifted a little, and the shadow drifted with it. A walker on the path passed through the shade, paused to adjust her bag, then continued into the sunlight.

The cloud rested above the hillside while the breeze grew softer. Its spoon shape became something closer to a cushion, though there was nobody below to name it. Long grass moved in small waves beneath its shadow.

Toward evening another cloud approached, thin and pink along one edge. The small cloud made room without having to move very far. Together they rested above the open slope until the valley lights began to appear below.

A small change for your next telling

Let your child choose one shape for the cloud's shadow. The cloud is a story character making choices, not an explanation of weather. If your listener asks why real clouds move, save a factual answer for a separate conversation rather than making this tale carry both jobs. The final hillside can borrow a tree or path from somewhere your family knows.

Day2Tale creates personalized, narrated stories.

Sources: Day2Tale support and product features