Tales & Tales: Elementary includes African folktales about dogs and jackals; classic fairy tales about ducks, wolves, and goats; nonsense stories about cats competing for cake, panthers making phone calls, and lions eating spaghetti. Plus, book recommendations about sharks, skunks, and badgers; bedtime stories about ants, llamas, and octopi; and calming stories about porpoises, camels, and cicadas. The list also features a couple of fabulous serial podcasts about dogs, including The Adventures of Power Dog in Dogland and Hank the Cowdog, the latter voiced by Matthew McConaughey.
Stories Podcast performs a new story every week, drawing from a variety of sources and a variety of styles. There are retellings of classics like Snow White, some folktales, and myths from around the world, as well as original stories. Episodes range from 10 to 20 minutes, with most on the longer side. Everything here is G-rated and safe for all ages.
Purple Rocket Podcast has a mix of content with quite a few long-running series, including “Grandpa's Globe,” which is about twins Sawyer and Suzie, who use their grandfather's magical globe to explore the universe. Other adventures involve everything from aliens to fairies. Mixed in with the series are occasional one-offs, some of which manage to impart little lessons for your kids. For example, “My Homework Ate Me” is a cautionary tale of procrastination.
It has pirate in the name, which is all my kids needed to hear. Story Pirates is an entertaining mix of stories and fun songs (like "The Bear That Couldn't Disco"). There are some special guest voices you might recognize in some episodes too, like Claire Danes and John Oliver.
Tales &Tales: Middle School includes historical tales about the bears in Theodore Roosevelt’s life; an indigenous Mi'kmaw tale about a whale; scientific tales about whales and dinos; a debate about whether armadillos are better than porcupines; a serial outer space adventure starring space horse Briscoe; facts about zebrafish, spiders, and ocean creatures; audio dramas featuring a famous headless man riding a horse; weird unicorn sightings; news facts about virus-sniffing dogs; biographies of environmentalists; answers to questions such as, “Why don’t dogs poo in the toilet?”; and more silly humor.
The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel is a high-quality serial mystery story for middle-graders, performed by actual kids. Think Goonies meets Spy Kids meets Stranger Things. Listen along as 11-year-old Mars Patel and his pals JP, Toothpick, and Caddie set out on an audacious adventure in search of two missing friends. The mysterious tech billionaire Oliver Pruitt might have a thing or two to say about their quest, because as he likes to say, “To the stars!” In fact, that’s just where they might be headed…
This Australian podcast is devoted to showcasing true stories of Australian women. From athletes to spies, Fierce Girls often promotes a unifying theme of adventurous girls with "guts and spirit." While the stories are all appropriate for kids and not graphic, the hosts don't shy away from telling stories as they happen. In some cases, you might want to listen first to make sure a story is appropriate for your children's maturity level.
Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio. Check out the latest episode with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi on introducing his new series, "Be An Anti Racist." Other episodes look at ballerina Marie Taglioni, the history of cookbooks, Danish monarchy, the defenestrations of Prague and more.
On Dear Hand & John, hosts John and Hank Green (authors and YouTubers) offer both humorous and heartfelt advice about life’s big and small questions. They bring their personal passions to each episode by sharing the week’s news from Mars (the planet) and AFC Wimbledon (the third-tier English football club).
Stuff You Should Know: If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
BookTok is a podcast book club with your new best friends! Follow along with us as we read sections of books and chat about them each week. Hosted by Katie Chaney and Erica Bailey, new episodes drop every week on Sunday nights.