The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime
A gentle bedtime story to help you drift off tonight: Beatrix Potter's charming woodland tale The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, read slowly and unhurried for sleep and insomnia relief. This is a new author joining the Books at Bedtime strand — also known as Coffee Break for the Soul — from the Calming Anxiety podcast, a series of classic story readings designed as a calming audiobook for restless nights.
For the full library, plus ambient night-light features for the small hours, download Anchored: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.martinhewlett.anchored (Android) or https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 (iPhone).
Narrated softly by Martin Hewlett, clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic, this reading follows a cheeky little red squirrel called Nutkin, his brother Twinkleberry, and their cousins as they sail on twig rafts to Owl Island each day, bringing offerings of mice, minnows, and honey to old Mr. Brown, the owl who owns the nut bushes. While the other squirrels ask politely, Nutkin can never resist a rude riddle instead — and by the sixth day, his impertinence very nearly costs him more than his manners. A whimsical, sing-song read full of old English riddles, ideal for falling asleep, insomnia, and quieting an anxious mind before bed.
First published in August 1903, Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin is in the public domain worldwide (Potter died in 1943); this reading is Calming Anxiety's own narration of the classic public-domain text. Potter originally wrote the story as a picture letter for a real little girl named Norah Moore, and dedicated the finished book to her — "a story for Norah."
This episode introduces Beatrix Potter to the Books at Bedtime strand, joining Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, Oscar Wilde's fairy tales, classic short fiction from Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and Kate Chopin, and longer serialised reads including Alice in Wonderland, The Time Machine, and The Hound of the Baskervilles, with new instalments added regularly to the main Calming Anxiety feed.
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