How to: Curious Stories for Kids

Big questions make wonderful stories. How to gathers short, illustrated explanations of the things children notice every day, beginning with how a heavy airplane stays in the sky. Each story takes one question and follows it step by step.

Illustrated children exploring how the world works around a colorful How? title

In this collection

A smiling white passenger airplane with orange engines flies above clouds and a green valley.

How Can Something So Heavy Fly?

A child looks up at a heavy passenger airplane and discovers how lift, weight, thrust, and drag work together to keep it flying.

Intermediate · ≈ 3 min

A child watches water vapour rise from leafy trees toward rain clouds above a river.

How Do Trees Help Bring Rain?

Follow a drop of water from a tree's roots to its leaves, into a cloud, and back to Earth as rain.

Intermediate · ≈ 3 min

Start with one big question

Children can look at an airplane and ask a question adults find surprisingly hard to answer: how can something so heavy fly? This collection begins with that question and uses familiar examples, like a paper airplane and a toy car, to explain the forces at work.

Each new story will stand on its own. Choose the question your child is asking tonight, read it together, and leave room for the next one.

Read or listen together

The full story is available to read on this site. In the Ninni Tales app, a parent can choose to hear a story narrated in their recorded voice after giving consent for voice cloning.

The words are written for curious young listeners and keep the explanation close to what they can picture.

Frequently asked questions

What is in the How to collection?

It starts with an illustrated story explaining how airplanes fly. More question-led stories will join the collection as they are published.

Can I read these stories without the app?

Yes. The complete story text is on the website. The app offers narration in a recorded parent voice when a family chooses that feature.