If you’re looking to change up your bedtime story routine, this Alexa skill can help. Short Bedtime Story will read a, you guessed it, short bedtime story to your child, using his or her name.

When it’s time to choose books to read, kids will often reach for old favourites. This isn’t a bad thing — there are benefits in repeating the same stories over and over. But it’s possible they just don’t know what else is hidden deep in the shelves.

Roald Dahl is best known for writing a series of beloved and critically acclaimed children's books. But before Willy Wonka, Mr Fox, the B.F.G and all the rest, Dahl had a career of a very different sort - as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force.

During World War 2, he took part in the brutal Battle of Athens, sustained life-threatening injuries in a crash and rose to the rank of squadron leader. Oh yeah, and he also fell in love with a nurse.

Picture books can be magical for readers of all ages, even adults. But when it comes to reading aloud to young kids, I've learned not to ignore chapter books and novels. It may seem daunting to open up a hundred-plus-page tome when your audience has an attention span the length of a Peppa Pig episode, but the experience of making it through the story can be deeply rewarding.

Reading with your kids is important. We all know this. If you're like me, you dive into book after book with abandon.

You know when you come across a piece of expert advice and it’s something you already do out of convenience or laziness, and then you feel smug and think: Oh yes, I knew what I was doing all along? That’s what happened when I came across a tip in in Sarah Mackenzie’s wonderful book The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids.

Most of us know that reading to babies is a very good thing - it's tied to language and cognitive development, helps strengthen the parent-child bond, and gives us a welcome script when we're trying to get in our recommended 30,000 words a day without having to rap the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song yet again. But for optimal benefits, it may not be enough to simply grab any board book or Thai takeaway menu and start rattling off the words. According to a new study, the type of book you read may make a big difference.