Lights Out Bedtime Stories for Boys and Girls

From the book:
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was very, very shy. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters so he lived all alone with his mommy and daddy.

But his mommy and daddy were always working. His daddy worked in a factory miles and miles and miles away from home, meaning that Billy only saw him on the weekends. Mom worked in a restaurant, and she came back really late each night. So the boy, when he left school each day, had to get on the school bus and sit on his seat by the window near the back, get off the school bus by himself, walk all the way up the stairs to his house, open the door, turn on the oven and cook the food that his mom had prepared, eat it by himself, do his homework by himself, brush his teeth, wash his face, and go to bed all by himself. His mom would come home about 10 o'clock at night and he was always still awake, waiting for her. Whenever he heard his mom close the door as she came in from work, he would close his eyes and wait. You see, every time mom came back home she always, without fail, went to Billy’s bedroom first, just to check he was sleeping. And every night she would see his eyes were closed and every single night she would give him a kiss on his forehead. Billy always tried to stay awake but as soon as his mom kissed his head, he fell fast asleep.

In the mornings when he got up, his mom would have breakfast with him and tell him what food she'd prepared the night before so he would know what he would be having for dinner alone that night. And then he would go to school.

On the weekends Billy’s dad would usually get home on a Friday night around ten or eleven at night. And so that was the night that Billy could stay up a little bit later than usual and also because there was no school on Saturdays he could get to see his dad for bit, but his dad was always tired and didn’t play much with his only child.
You see, this boy, Billy, did not have a very nice life. All he did was come home every day by himself: on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday he would go home all by himself and look after himself until he fell asleep when his mom kissed his forehead. He didn't have any friends to play with, and he could never go outside because his mom said not to play outside. Sometimes he could go out on the weekend but his dad would come home on the weekend, and his dad would usually sleep on the sofa all the time, because he was so tired from working so hard. This meant Billy usually had to help his mom to wash and clean and do all the housework so the boy felt very, very fed up.

Well, one day, I think it was a Tuesday afternoon, the boy was feeling particularly fed up and he got off the school bus and went upstairs to his house. He turned on the oven to heat up his dinner and then he heard a ‘ding dong’ at the door.
“Oh, who's that? Mom didn’t tell me anyone would be visiting!”, he thought.
So he went and opened the door and there at the bottom of the step was a little canvas box and nobody to be seen.
He looked around again but he couldn't see anybody.
“That’s strange”, thought Billy. “Postmen don’t even come at this time of day”.
So, after making sure the coast was clear he took the little box quickly under his arm, closed the door and went and put it on a kitchen table. He turned off the oven and let his food cool down a bit. And as his food was cooling, he sat down and opened up the little box. He unraveled the delicate paper wrapped present to find just a little note. And the little note said,
‘Follow the blue whale’
“mmm, is this for me?”, he thought. “Follow the blue whale, what does that mean?”
Well, he couldn't really think of what the note meant and then he started to get hungry and remembered that his food was getting cold in the cooling oven so he put the card on top of his piano and went and ate his dinner. As he was washing his dishes, he...

한국말 있는 어란이 영어 책) The Fabulous Lost and Found by Mark Pallis.⁣
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This was a great little read, and being able to read and speak Korean it was a real pleasure to put on the podcast. Mark has a great idea with the way he is creating these English children's books incorporating other languages in a very engaging way! ⁣
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.About the Author and Illustrator:⁣
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Mark Pallis is a lifelong lover of language. He was originally a lawyer but switched to the creative sector and devised the award-winning BBC TV drama Garrow's Law and served as Story Editor over its three series. Since then, Mark built up 15 years' experience in communication, branding, and storytelling, including as Creative ⁣
Director of a busy London ad agency, writing episodes for the Daytime Emmy winning Tales of Peter Rabbit and sitting on the Executive Committee of the Children's Media Foundation. He is represented by the BKS Agency and his first children’s book ‘Crab and Whale’ has been translated into five languages. He lives with his wife and two young children.-⁣
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Peter Baynton is an animator, director, and illustrator based in London. He is the Animation Director of the UK’s Channel 4's new 2019 Christmas film, The Tiger Who Came To Tea, adapted from Judith Kerr's classic book. He has been directing short films, music videos, and commercials for twelve years, picking up over 25 awards at film festivals around the world along the way. He has also worked as a storyboard artist on the BAFTA-winning CBeebies show Sarah & Duck, and in 2017 was the 2D Animation Director for Paddington 2. This year he decided to pursue a long-held desire to illustrate a children's book and was enchanted by Mark’s manuscript for The Fabulous Lost and Found.⁣
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From the Author Mark:-What's the story behind the book?When I was 21, I set up a legal aid clinic for refugees. Sitting in my office in Cairo, I’d meet people from Sierra Leone, Congo, Iraq, and Sudan. They’d tell me why they’d fled and I would prepare their cases. But to get to a point where they were willing to share those painful stories, we had to build a relationship of trust. I asked myself, How do I do that: form a bond, show respect, and yet break the ice with a stranger? For me, it was to talk to them in their own language. ‘Aw Di bodi? I would ask clients from Sierra Leone. They’d smile, taken aback, and reply in Krio, ‘Di Bodi fayn.’ Then I’d apologise for my language skills ‘Ah no sabi tok Krio fayn fayn.’ And we’d share a chuckle. Somehow just that simple gesture of wanting to engage, of being seen to be making an effort to make them feel at home was enough to set us off. I’ve been like that my whole life. I now speak Italian, French and German and can tell jokes or sing a little song in Tagalog, Greek, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Krio and Kupsabiny (a Ugandan language). I can’t imagine my life without it.⁣
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Today, like never before, I feel we need more of that empathy between people from different countries. This book is an engaging story that I hope kids will love in its own right. But it’s also my way of helping the youngest children, my own included, engage with a foreign language, learn to empathise with strangers, and ultimately build a love of languages. The possibility that after a few reads, kids will be able to go up to a native speaker and tell them in their own language: ‘I’ve lost my hat,’ fills me with joy. Imagine the reaction! Think of how proud the child will feel. So whether you come to the book because your family has a deliciously mixed international heritage, like mine, or simply for the fun of it, the simple fact of engaging with another language is going to an enriching experience for everyone.The book has several versions incorporating different languages and can be found here⁣
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https://www.neuwestendpress.com/

The Girl Who Escaped From Home

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a very, very big house. And she was the daughter of a very, very rich family. And she was the only daughter. But her mommy and daddy were very, very cruel and very, very mean. She lived in one of the biggest houses in the town. But she felt like she wanted to escape. And that's exactly what she tried to do. One night, when a mommy and daddy were asleep, he sneaked out from underneath a very heavy blankets. And she put on some warm clothes so she can go out in the night. Now, did I tell you that this story was about 200 years ago, when there was no electricity. And the girl had to find some candles, and some matches, so that she could find a way outside. Well, she found the candles, and she found the matches. And as she walked down a big long hallway, to the big round staircase, she almost dropped the matches and walk up her parents. I don't want to wake up my parents, she said, if they catch me on never get out of this big house. You see, one of the reasons why she didn't like to stay there was because the house had 20 slaves, and maids and cooks and cleaners. And the mommy and daddy were always shouting and hitting and making them do all the work. And the girl who didn't do a day's work in life. felt really sorry for these people. And she couldn't do anything about it. So she wanted to send a message and she thought she'd run away. Standing at the top of the staircase looking down, she didn't know whether to go back to a room or to run. She took a deep breath, put the candles in a pocket and tiptoe down the steps. She came to the big door which was really hard to open. And she took 20 minutes just to lift the latch. She lifted it off, open the door and stood outside in the dark pitch black nights. He was very quiet. But when she lit the match, and she put the candle on, put it in the length Lenten, she was able to see. And the light shone the path down all the way to the roads. So she walked down there quite quickly, because she didn't want to wake up a moment that when she got to the bottom of the road, there was a path going to the right and to the left. But she didn't know where she was going. So she just went this one, and she went left. And she followed the road all the way down to the forest. And there was two entrances to the forest. And she didn't know which one to take. So she went this one. And she went right. And she went right into the deep, dark forest. And she was scared. She was scared because she didn't know what was in the forest. And she heard lots of stories of wolves and bears and gruff hellos and all kinds of things. But you know what, she'd never seen a Gruffalo or a bear or a wolf. But she'd seen a mommy and daddy hitting all these cleaners and workers. So she, she knew she was definitely scared of that. But she didn't know what she was scared of. Because he hadn't seen anything in the forest. She'd never been there before. So she started to walk into the deep, dark forest. And then she started to hear noises. And the noises grew louder and louder. And these noises were of owls and birds and the growls of what seemed to be bears. Now, she started to get worried and scared. And she didn't know which way she was going. So she started to run faster and faster into the forest. And she got to the place where she thought she could see the moon through the top of the trees. And it was lights. And she stopped and her heart was racing in a blood was pumping. And she couldn't hear the noises anymore. She sat down and she was so tired because it was the middle of the night. She fell asleep. Well, the next day she woke up and she was in the middle of the nice forest and she didn't What to do. So she kept walking in the same way she was going, she walked in, she walked in, she walked in, she walked for miles. She walked for miles and miles. Sometimes she stopped. And she could pick the fruit from the trees. So she...

https://youtu.be/gKYS1L1XDG0
Check out the new animated video to go with this story



Wow - This was fun to record - and Adding the sound effects was really great. I would love to do it to all my episodes but it took so much time :( You will LOVE this episode of the Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and it might just be a favorite of mine now - and I promise you will drift off to sleep by the end with the calming and soothing sounds of the waves :))

Wow - This was fun to record - and Adding the sound effects was really great. I would love to do it to all my episodes but it took so much time :( You will LOVE this episode of the Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and it might just be a favorite of mine now - and I promise you will drift off to sleep by the end with the calming and soothing sounds of the waves :))

As the title suggests - this is a story about a little girl that loved chocolate so much she ended up turning into chocolate, only to be gobbled up by her little brother...

Why are top buttons so hard to fasten? Find out why in this short improvised story.

An introduction - Where this Podcast is from and the 'WHY' behind it! - E3D shares an intimate intro for fans here on SPOtiFY! :)

This is the compilation of 3 stories merged into one episode for your listening delight. Billy and the whale is a wonderful story of the lonely boy who discovers a magic whale, meets his mysterious hero grandpa, rescues a princess from terrible monsters and gets lots of treasure AND lives happily ever after ❤️💕

This is the 3rd party in the e post series about Billy and the Blue Whale.

In this part Billy fights with terrible monsters, rescues a princess and gets gold and diamonds that he takes home and lives happily ever after.