Oyasumi Bookstore Mimimin

Audio-only picture book

Listen to a storybook and drift into dreams. Tonight again, a gentle bookstore opens its doors for parents and children.

Issue

Families raising children often face sleep-related challenges. Many struggle with bedtime routines, night waking, or late bedtimes. In particular, putting children to sleep takes longer in many households, creating stress for both parents and kids.

Creation

“Oyasumi Bookstore Mimimin” is an audio program created to support children’s bedtime by letting parents and kids listen together before sleep. It transforms nightly storytelling into a meaningful moment of shared values, delivering children’s works tailored for bedtime through narration patterns designed to gently encourage relaxation and sleep.

This content is recorded using a sleep-inducing method that analyzes five vocal elements—volume, intonation, pitch, pauses, and tone—to create the most effective narration pattern for children’s sleep. Leading the narration is Sachie Sugigami, a former Nippon TV announcer and certified picture book specialist, joined by other professional storytellers. During development, tests with preschool children showed that those with a regular read-aloud habit fell asleep about seven minutes faster.

For the first release, four carefully selected picture books were chosen for bedtime storytelling, offering stories that suit parent–child moments:
Theme: Children’s Adventures – Buying Mittens (Nankichi Niimi) and The House on the Hill (Miekichi Suzuki)
Theme: Places of Warmth – Night (Yumeji Takehisa) and A Story of the Sea (Motori Yamamura)
These classics convey the beauty and rhythm of the Japanese language while supporting the feelings of parents wishing for their children’s healthy future. More titles will be added regularly, offering stories that help families welcome tomorrow with warmth and calm.
The audio content was developed in collaboration with Studio Otobank, the production division of Otobank Inc., and is distributed via their audiobook platform, audiobook.jp.

Future

Accelerating Social Implementation

Plans include providing content to childcare facilities and hosting read-aloud events for children to help address sleep challenges. If you’re interested in using the content, please contact us through our website.