The Boy Who Counted Stars
- 3 minute read
- Ages 4-8
- Bedtime Stories
Arif could not sleep.
He had tried lying on his left side and then his right side and then flat on his back with his arms straight down, which his sister said was how soldiers slept, and none of it had worked.
So he got up very quietly and climbed onto the wide window sill and looked out.
One
The sky was full of stars.
Arif decided he would count them. He was good at counting. He could count to a hundred without stopping and to two hundred if nobody talked to him.
He started at the top of the window and worked down.
One. Two. Three, four, five.
He got to nineteen and lost his place, so he started again.
Slower
The second time he went more slowly.
He noticed that the stars were not all the same. Some were very bright and steady. Some were so faint that they only appeared if he looked slightly to the side of them, and disappeared if he looked straight at them, which he thought was a strange and rather polite thing for a star to do.
Some were slightly orange. One near the roof of the house opposite was almost blue.
He forgot to count for a while.
The wide part
When he remembered, he had reached thirty-one, and he decided to be sensible and start at one edge and go across.
But the sky kept going.
It went past the edge of the window, so he leaned out a little and it went further, over the roofs and over the trees behind the roofs, and when he tipped his head right back it went up and over the top of the house as well, and behind him, and all the way down to the other side of the world.
There was a great deal more of it than he had allowed for.
The last number
Arif rested his chin on his arms on the sill.
He counted forty-two, and forty-three, and then a slow one that took a long time, and forty-four.
The night was warm. Somewhere down the street a door closed softly. A moth came and looked at him and went away again.
Forty-five.
He was not sure whether he said forty-six out loud or only thought it, and by then it did not really matter, because his eyes had closed on their own.
His father found him there and carried him to bed, and Arif did not wake up, and he did not finish counting.
Nobody has.
Moral of the story
Some things are too big to finish, and that is not a problem to solve. It is a good thing to fall asleep in the middle of.
Questions and answers
- Why did Arif get up in the night?
He could not sleep, even after trying several different positions in bed.
- What did he decide to do at the window?
He decided to count the stars, because he was good at counting.
- Why did he keep losing count?
He noticed how different the stars were from each other and became interested in looking at them instead of counting them.
- What did Arif discover when he leaned out?
That the sky carried on past the window, over the roofs and trees, above the house and all the way round the world.
- How does the story end?
He falls asleep at the window and his father carries him to bed. He never finishes counting, and the story says nobody ever has.
Word meanings
- sill
- The flat ledge at the bottom of a window.
- faint
- Not bright or strong; hard to see.
- moth
- An insect like a butterfly that flies at night.
- allowed for
- Expected or planned for.
Questions about The Boy Who Counted Stars
What age is this bedtime story for?
Ages four to eight. It takes about four minutes to read aloud and has a deliberately quiet ending.
Why do faint stars disappear when you look at them?
Because the very centre of your eye is poor at seeing dim light. Looking slightly to one side of a faint star genuinely does make it easier to see, which is a real technique astronomers use.
Is there anything frightening in this story?
No. Nothing happens that could unsettle a child, and the ending is calm on purpose.
What is a good thing to say afterwards?
Ask how far the child thinks the sky goes. It is a question with no wrong answer, which is a useful thing at bedtime.