The Old Wooden House

Editor Alexandra Hackett-Jones

Illustrator Polina Vilchinskaya

© Will Hackett-Jones, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0067-5016-6

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

About the author

Will Hackett-Jones moved from Suffolk, England to St. Petersburg, Russia in 2003 aged 23. He set up Cool English Magazine for learners of English.

2008 put paid to that.

He then founded a translation company, Eclectic Translations, specialising in subtitling Russian films into English.

2022 finished that one off.

In his third incarnation, he is a novelist, who accidentally wrote a children’s book.

Yes, this one.

Now it seems likely it’s to become the first in the Boring Stories series of children’s books.

Don’t ask him how this happened, he has no idea.

Also by Will Hackett-Jones

A range of autobiographical, fictional, opinion, and business articles.

COMING SOON:

The Boring Stories Series

A collection of books to help kids get to sleep on buses, trains, planes, ferries, etc.

The Shugovka Yacht Club

An American’s tale of love and loss amidst war, finding hope through a rural Russian sailing club.

Igor’s String Theory

A mad Soviet scientist, long hidden in England, and a steadfast postmistress race to Riga to strike the chord of the universe, chased by a relentless KGB colonel in a wild adventure!

To Katie, my darling child.

Thank you, Sasha, for your unwavering belief in me.

Thank you Cliff and Pasha for making this possible.

[Note to the reader]

This story was born out of desperation. On a long flight from Shanghai to Auckland, Katie threatened to keep up her record of not sleeping on planes. She wasn’t a screamer – just a tosser and turner, a kicker, and a knocker-over of drinks.

Sasha, my wife, was getting the worst of it, dozing off just in time to be awoken again by Katie twisting into some bizarre new position.

I undid my buckle, knelt down next to Katie, and whispered this story, almost verbatim, into her ear. I made it up on the spot with one aim – to lull her to sleep.

It worked.

In New Zealand I used it three more times, on Lucy and Tayla, who asked far too many questions, so I had to draw it out even longer than usual, on Katie one more time, and then on a car full of females from 5 to 40 years old. It worked every time.

The objective of this book is that no child is ever awake to hear the end of it.

It is as dull, repetitive, and monotonous as I’ve been able to make it. There are no pictures, barring the cover, as they’d be too exciting. There is no plot, no beginning-middle-end structure. And there are absolutely no baddies, ghosts, or other interesting characters.

But I can’t do all the work; it requires some effort on your behalf, too. As such, I’ve left various stage directions for you, in square brackets. They should help you deliver a perfectly slow, dull, monotonous, repetitive story, that will achieve the desired aim of putting even the most excitable of anklebiters to sleep.

What you’ll find is that they slip off to sleep in the pauses between sentences, so be sure to do plenty of them, and don’t hesitate to stretch the pauses out. 3—5 seconds is great. Towards the end, 10—15 seconds works, too.

Too long pauses too early, and they’ll jolt awake again, aware that the story’s stopped. Too short, and they won’t have time to slip from listening to sleeping.

Be warned! It might send you to sleep, too. Be prepared to wake up at 1 am slumped over the book, drooling, with a crick in your neck. For this I apologise in advance. At least the kids are asleep.

If you find your voice isn’t boring enough, you can always download the audio book and let them doze off to my mellifluous tones.

PRELUDE

[Take a seat next to the child’s bed. Not in it, or you’ll fall asleep. Not on it, or you’ll wake them when you get up. Dim the lights. Begin reading in your normal, calm, authoritative voice]

It’s bedtime now, little one, and I’m going to tell you a perfectly dull story to help you get to sleep. It’s so dull, you could even call it boring.

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