School holidays are here again and if you’re looking for ways to keep smart kids engaged and happy, without relying on a screen, podcasts and audiobooks are an excellent alternative – especially when you are staring down the highway of a long family road trip and lots of time in the car. My four-year-old has a collection of shows he loves to listen to in the car, during play time, or even when he’s falling asleep.
So these are some of our favourite podcasts and audiobooks for kids… that adults will enjoy too! Happy listening, happy reading and happy holidays.
The best podcasts and audiobooks for family road trips
1. Imagine This
Imagine This is a podcast aimed at kids aged 4-7 — but really it’s a delight for humans of any age. Based on The Conversation’s Curious Kids series, each episode features host Brianna Peterson going on an audio adventure to find answers from experts on important kid questions like: How do we smell? Why do birds sing? And why do volcanoes erupt?
Price: Free from your favourite Podcast app
2. Kinderling Kids Radio
Kinderling Kids Radio is always entertaining background noise for car trips and play, and the app allows you to download and save most of its programs and mixtapes. The stories in Kinderling are always high quality, and include BBC favourites, Indigenous Australian Stories, as well books read by Australian celebrities like Jimmy Barnes. Kinderling’s Bedtime Explorers series will quickly send even the most restless child to sleep.
Price: Free from the app store or steam live via DAB + digital radio (find under ‘Kids’).
And if you are flying it’s also available from Qantas in flight entertainment.
3. The Beanies
The Beanies Podcast is an award winning Australian podcast created by the very talented Miriam Rizvi, Laura Dawson and Michael Yore. There are educational stories, games and songs all in the one podcast but they have a very special way of looking at the world with child-like wonder, combined with a cheeky sense of humour. We love it and it’s often on rotation to and from daycare.
Price: Free from your favourite Podcast app, Spotify or via the Kinderling Kids Radio app
4. Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree
Narrated by Kate Winslet, Enid Blyton’s classic fairy tale The Magic Faraway Tree creates a magical land for children that has truely stood the test of time. Your children will meet fairy folk who live on every branch, meet Moon-Face, and Saucepan Man, and visit all the different lands at the top of the Faraway Tree – including the Land of Do-As-You-Please where the children ride in a runaway train.
Price: $25.59 via audible or free on YouTube here
5. Storynory
Fiction at its finest. From classic fairytales to modern-day stories, Storynory has something for everyone. One of my favourites — “How Love and Peace Came To The Woods” — is from Aesop’s Fables. The podcast brings the stories to us from all over the world and each episode is short and sweet to match the attention span of even our littlest ones.
Price: Free from your favourite Podcast app
6. Stories Podcast
They specifically made this podcast for families on-the-go — the Stories Podcast is fun, fictional, entertaining stories for bedtime or car rides. Everything from classics like Snow White and Peter Rabbit to completely original works. There’s something for everyone and always rated G.
Price: Free from your favourite Podcast app
7. Roald Dahl’s Matilda
Another classic story read by multi-award-winning actress Kate Winslet, Matilda Wormwood is an extraordinary genius with really stupid parents. Miss Trunchbull is her terrifying headmistress who thinks all her pupils are rotten little stinkers. But Matilda will show these horrible grown-ups that even though she’s only small, she’s got some very powerful tricks up her sleeve…
Price: $28.11 via audible
8. Listen to the Storyteller
Ok so it’s starting to become apparent that we could listen to Kate Winslet’s voice for hours but this particular album awarded her a Grammy Award for the Best Spoken Word Album. The trio of musical tales from around the world is particularly special for it’s use of melody, rhythm, and sound with different instruments to bring out parts of the story that may otherwise be hidden in the telling.
Price: Free from Apple Music or Spotify
9. A bear called Paddington
Stephen Fry really takes things up a notch when he reads children’s books and this version of the original Paddington story is no exception. The Browns first met Paddington on a railway station – Paddington station, in fact. He had travelled all the way from Darkest Peru with only a jar of marmalade, a suitcase, and his hat.
Price: $10.91 via Audible
10. News Time
Last but most certainly not the least (it may actually be my favourite), the News Time podcast by ABC Kids is about all the amazing stories happening at home and abroad each week, made especially for young children to help them understand the world around them. Join Ruby for News Time as she counts down the week’s most interesting news stories for pre-schoolers. Featuring stories about children, animals, special events, the natural world, and outer space, News Time invites little ones to engage with the wider world in a safe space, with a lot of fun along the way.
Price: Free from your favourite Podcast app
