In a recent article in “School Library Journal,” author and mom Lisa G. Kropp lamented the fact that parents often stop reading to their children at bedtime. One reason, Kropp states, is that often parents think that children must be getting bored hearing the same story over and over. Kropp based on her experience as a mother, who reads to her children, says this isn’t so. Even though she read the same story and eventually found it difficult to muster enthusiasm, her son identified with the boy in the story and loved hearing it.
The British children’s author Frank Cottrell Boyce stated in an article in “The Guardian” that he believes “the joy of a bedtime story is the key to developing a love of reading in children.”
Alice Ozma’s book “The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared” said that when she was in the fourth grade she and her father made a bargain that he would read aloud to her for 100 consecutive nights. After 100 nights, he continued to read out loud to his daughter every night, without fail. This marathon reading experience lasted until Alice went to college.
What is the role of libraries in this activity. “Libraries are wonderful incubators for the story,” Kropp remarks. Storytimes, sometimes after dark when the listeners come dressed in their pajamas, keep the story time tradition alive.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of great books available to parents for the bedtime story tradition. Parents can focus on a particular author or theme or even read the same book over and over. Libraries offer the newest bedtime stories or ones that have been around forever. There are so many stories to read and keep on reading at bedtime to children 
well beyond the age of infancy.