The favorite bedtime story offers certainty inside a day full of newness.

Repetition is restful because it is the one part of a small person’s day with no surprises in it. Everything else has been new since morning, unpredictable and mostly decided by other people, and the story that always ends the same way gives back a piece of the world that behaves exactly as expected. Wanting it again is not a lack of imagination; it is a sensible request for a fixed point.

Read the same one as often as it is asked for. And notice where your own version of that is, since adults also do better with one predictable thing at the end of an unpredictable day.