Children can benefit from creating their own bedtime books.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Calvin's father begged him to choose another bedtime story, but Calvin _ co-star of the comic strip "Calvin & Hobbes'' _ was adamant. It had to be "Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey." Night after night after night.

So his father's readings began to include strange and twisted fates for Hamster Huey, to which Calvin would shout, "But that's not the way it ends!"

If that's how your story misadventures go _ or if you would just like to make reading aloud more interactive and fun _ try letting your child do the work. Here are instructions for creating a bedtime story book with your child:

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Children too young to write can scribble instead; the parent can write the story at the bottom of the page. Even 2- or 3-year-olds can learn that books have authors and are read from left to right one page at a time.

"When you write down the story they tell you they begin to see symbols," said Kathy Thornburg, a University of Missouri-Columbia professor and president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. "They are writers and readers, as opposed to feeling like they can't do something."

Set aside a corner for writing and stock it with crayons, markers, pencils and paper of different colors and sizes. Remember, the smaller the would-be author, the bigger the paper and writing utensils should be.