Bedtime Story

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier'sLiterary Awardfor Non-Fiction
Longlisted for the 2023Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award

From the best-selling author of The Tall Man and The Arsonist, a personal tale about death, life and the enchantment of stories. With illustrations by Anna Walker.

Let me tell you a story

When Chloe Hoopers partner is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive illness, she has to find a way to tell their two young sons. By instinct, she turns to the bookshelf. Can the news be broken as a bedtime tale Is there a perfect book to prepare children for loss

Hooper embarks on a quest to find what practical lessons childrens literaturewith its innocent orphans and evil adults, magic, monsters and anthropomorphic animalscan teach about grief and resilience in real life. From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tolkien and Dahlall of whom suffered childhood bereavementsshe follows the breadcrumbs of the worlds favourite authors, searching for the deep wisdom in their books and lives.

Both memoir and manual, Bedtime Story is stunningly illustrated by the New York Times award-winning Anna Walker. In an age of worldwide uncertainty, here is a profound and moving exploration of the dark and light of storytelling.

Praise for Bedtime Story

'Everything youd ever want in a bedtime story heroes and heroines, puzzles and dangers, invisible forces, birds, trees, beasts, poetry, sadness and joy. Stories within stories. I was spellbound from the start. As for the ending... I cant tell you that.' Paul Kelly OA

Chloe Hooper has a formidable talent to take complex stories and ideas and truths, and to distil them into a language of direct and powerful beauty. This is a story of grief and of patience, of hope and acceptance. It is also a reminder of the solace that books give us, and of how the imaginary worlds we dive into as children remain with is for all our lives, of how they guide us into adulthood and maturity. There is a quiet courage and strength in this book. It is both gentle and uncompromising,a love letter to family and to literature that is bracingly unsentimental. I was profoundly moved, and profoundly grateful. Christos Tsiolkas

This book is a miracle of light and meaning-making from one of our finest writers. Venturing inward with extraordinary grace, Hooper explores and extends the long literary line surging with our deepest inherited wisdom about how to embrace our finite lives. The result is nothing less than the hero's journey we have been collectively starving for. Telling you this is like trying to describe the sun; it is a book so powerful and beautiful so utterly its own that it can only be experienced directly. Sarah Krasnostein

Exquisitely beautiful. This book is an act of love. Anna Funder

'Deeply engrossing and honest, human, full of love and tenderness, with moments of sparkling humour in the struggle. I loved everything about Bedtime Story. I loved particularly what it taught me about authors who write for children, the ways that writing and reading provides compensation, balancing the scales between loss and love.Sofie Laguna

I loved Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper so much! A sensitive & beautifully executed exploration of the power & purposes of storytelling.'Kate Forsyth

'Chloe Hooper is a beautiful writer... Her latest book is incredibly personal, yet she still weaves an outward curiosity that drives all of her non fiction; a compulsion to figure out the why, how, and if, of life.' Zan Rowe

Reviews

This book is a miracle of light and meaning-making from one ofour finest writers. Venturing inward with extraordinary grace, Hooper explores and extends the long literary line surging with our deepest inherited wisdom about how to embrace our finite lives. The result is nothing less than the hero's journey we have been collectively starving for. Telling you this is like trying to describe the sun; it is a book so powerful and beautiful so utterly its own that it can only be experienced directly. -- Sarah Krasnostein, author of The Trauma Cleaner and The Believer
'Everything youd ever want in a bedtime story heroes and heroines, puzzles and dangers, invisible forces, birds, trees, beasts, poetry, sadness and joy. Stories within stories. I was spellbound from the start. As for the ending... I cant tell you that.' -- Paul Kelly, AO
'Exquisitely beautiful. This book is an act of love.' -- Anna Funder, author of All That I Am and Stasiland
An important book about the ways fiction can provide escape and hope and meaning in the face of unbearable pain. The ways it can teach and guide and contain,illuminating the darkness. A book about the marvel and wonder of children, and our terror for them, when things change in ways we can neither predict nor control. A book about love and story, and why one is essential to the other. Deeply moving, compelling and thought-provoking, Bedtime Story explores the reasons why we write for children, the mystery we are trying to get to the heart of, the tools we are trying to give to our young people to survive. A book about the ways we can triumph over loss and grief, with the stories that we write, the worlds we draw. Deeply engrossing and honest, human, full of love and tenderness, with moments of sparkling humour in the struggle. I loved everything about Bedtime Story. I loved particularly what it taught me about authors who write for children, the ways that writing and reading provides compensation, balancing the scales between loss and love. -- Sofie Laguna, author of The Eye of the Sheep and Too Loud Lily
Chloe Hooper has a formidable talent to take complex stories and ideas and truths, and to distil them into a language of direct and powerful beauty. This is a story of grief and of patience, of hope and acceptance. It is also a reminder of the solace that books give us, and of how the imaginary worlds we dive into as children remain with is for all our lives, of how they guide us into adulthood and maturity. There is a quiet courage and strength in this book. It is both gentle and uncompromising, a love letter to family and to literature that is bracingly unsentimental. I was profoundly moved, and profoundly grateful. -- Christos Tsiolkas
[A]n exquisite work in which her prodigious talent for getting to the true heart of a story is turned inwards. Hooper invites the reader into her home, heart, and head, to sit by her childrens beds, but carefully, gracefully. She staves off easy mawkishness and strikes a perfect balance with mood-perfect illustrations by Anna Walker as she searches for a way to tell her children about the likely tragedy that awaits. While its a deeply personal dilemma, Hooper finds universality in a magical and compelling book. -- Lucy Clarke, Guardian
'There are countless exquisite moments in this book about life stripped to its essentials.' * Sydney Morning Herald *
I loved Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper so much! A sensitive & beautifully executed exploration of the power & purposes of storytelling.' -- Kate Forsyth
'Chloe Hooper is a beautiful writer... Her latest book is incredibly personal, yet she still weaves an outward curiosity that drives all of her non fiction; a compulsion to figure out the why, how, and if, of life.' -- Zan Rowe
shows the power of words and literature to comfort us during the darkest moments of our lives -- Readings, Best Non-Fiction of 2022

Author Bio

Chloe Hooper's most recent book is the bestsellingThe Arsonist: AMind on Fire.The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian and Queensland Premiers Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing, and a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing. She is also the author of two acclaimed novels,A Childs Book of True CrimeandThe Engagement. She lives in Melbourne with her partner and her two sons.