The 'boring' book aiming to send children to sleep

A young girl sits in a car seat smiling at the camera as she holds a book. She is wearing a pink cap and a pink T-shirt. A green fake tattoo is on her forearm in the shape of an octopus. — Image caption,
Katie inspired The Old Wooden House after she struggled to fall asleep during a long-haul flight

Alice Cunningham

BBC News, Suffolk

Wayne Bavin

BBC News, Suffolk

2 hours ago

A "boring" children's book aims to put youngsters to sleep before they reach its ending.

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.

After it worked, he thought it could be an opportunity to help others, so he wrote The Old Wooden House – a story with no plot or excitement.

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.

A young girl asleep in the back of a car. Her head is resting on the shoulder of a woman. She is wearing an orange coat and she has a seat belt on. — Image caption,
Katie managed to fall asleep after her father told her a dull story during their flight

The 45-year-old said it had been "a case of desperation" during a flight to New Zealand with Katie.

"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.

"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."

A man looking at the camera. He has dark hair and a thick dark beard. — Image caption,
Will Hackett-Jones has tested his new book on a few children as well as his wife, and it proved successful

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.

"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.

"So have the fun book and then the calm-down book."

A book with the title The Old Wooden House written on the front. The picture is of a wooden house on top of a hill. — Image caption,
The Old Wooden House has been released in both English and Russian

The author, who read Russian studies at university, has lived in the country since 2003.

He later set up a translation business, but it "ground to a halt" when the war with Ukraine began.

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".