Why short is not lesser
A short story here still does everything the long ones do: it descends, it slows, it ends on a held sleeping frame. Little Kip’s film is thirty-seven seconds because Little Kip never makes it past the second page — the length is the character. The singalong is thirty-three seconds and stays on rung one, because joining in is an awake thing to do and it knows it.
When short bedtime stories are the right call
There are two nights they are for. The first is the one that has overrun: the bath went long, the teeth were a standoff, and the lights should already be off — and on that night a twenty-minute story is not a treat, it is another twenty minutes. The second is the opposite. Some children are almost gone by the time they lie down, and a long story keeps them up to hear it. Short bedtime stories let the story end before the child does, which is the right way round.
Neither night is a failure, and the length is not a compromise. These were made at these lengths, by choosing them: thirty-three seconds, thirty-seven, a few minutes. The descent still happens, only faster, and it still ends on a held sleeping frame with the goodnights said. If the whole thing is over and nobody is asleep, that is what the next one is for — starting again is much easier than staying awake to the end of something long.