The Reading Bug Podcast - Original Adventures, Bedtime Stories and Music for Kids

Lauren's Little Bedtime Stories

Remi runs the finest — and only — delivery service in the village of Bramblewood. She has a leather satchel, a very organized notebook, and a perfect record. By late afternoon on a Thursday in October, she has one package left: a small brown parcel addressed to old Mrs. Thistle-Finch at the top of Wren Hill. The only problem is that somewhere between the post office and the bottom of the hill, the package has started making a sound. A faint, steady, impossible-to-explain ticking. A beaver named Mr. Holt has a theory. A crow named Vex has several, each more alarming than the last, and he follows Remi up the hill uninvited to share all of them. Nobody is right. When Mrs. Thistle-Finch finally opens the package in her warm stone cottage at the top of the hill, the ticking stops — and something much better takes its place.

Every Lauren's Little Bedtime Story includes:
Calming Relaxation: Gentle breathing exercises to help your body relax.
Original Bedtime Lullaby: Wind-down time as Lauren sings you to sleep.
A Full Original Bedtime Story: A whimsical story read aloud by Lauren.

A Reading Bug Adventure with Original Songs

Part 1 of 2. Ahoy, Reader! Hop into the Reading Bug's magic book bag and set sail with Lauren and the Reading Bug to meet some of the nastiest, rowdiest, smelliest, song-and-dance-iest pirates to ever sail the seven seas!

But there's trouble on the high seas — a young girl has been captured by the fearsome Captain Blackbeard and his motley crew, and she needs our help.

To get everyone to safety, we'll need to be brave, cunning, and ready for action. Can we outsmart Blackbeard before it's too late?

Explore the Magic! Check out the books featured in this adventure at: www.thereadingbug.com/adventures/pirate

Book Worm's Story Snacks | One Small Worm, One Giant Universe

Join Book Worm on this out-of-this-world Story Snack and step aboard the International Space Station — the most extraordinary thing human beings have ever built — where everything floats, sixteen sunrises happen every single day, and six astronauts are living and working right now, as you listen, above your head.

Meet Vera, an astronomer who has spent fifty years looking up at the ISS through her telescope — and has never once been inside it. Discover why orbiting Earth is really just falling sideways very fast, learn what the thin blue line hugging our planet actually is, and suit up for a spacewalk where the only thing between you and the silence of space is a helmet, a backpack full of oxygen, and a tether you really don't want to let go of.

Together, you'll discover that seeing our whole planet at once — small, bright, and fragile in all that black — changes the way you look at everything.

Lauren's Little Bedtime Stories

Savannah Sprinkles is a light brown puppy with four white paws and a very important list of things to do tonight — and going to sleep is not on it. There's a suspicious smell in the backyard that needs investigating, a food bowl whose status cannot be assumed, a three-week-old mystery behind the couch, and a refrigerator making a sound that frankly nobody has explained yet. The old golden dog Rosie is already asleep in her armchair on Chestnut Street and is of almost no help whatsoever. Savannah works her way through the list with great dedication — and discovers, one by one, that the backyard smell is gone, behind the couch is just a dust bunny, and the refrigerator is simply keeping things cold. Eventually, on her way to investigate the hallway, she stops just for a moment to smell her favorite blanket. Just to check it's still there. The bed turns out to be extremely difficult to leave.

Every Lauren's Little Bedtime Story includes:
Calming Relaxation: Gentle breathing exercises to help your body relax.
Original Bedtime Lullaby: Wind-down time as Lauren sings you to sleep.
A Full Original Bedtime Story: A whimsical story read aloud by Lauren.

A Reading Bug Adventure with Original Songs

When the other garden bugs tease the Reading Bug for being different, she does what she always does — reads more books! And this time, they inspire the most fantastical adventure yet. Join Lauren, the Reading Bug and the Spelling Bee on a journey over the rainbow to the Land of the Unicorns!

Only, things may not be all rainbows and unicorns. On the other side of the rainbow is a grey kingdom ruled by a cold and powerful queen who hates everything unique.

With the help of Yeti, a shy young unicorn in hiding, we must find the courage to stand up to the queen, rescue our friend, and remind every unicorn in the land that what makes them different makes them magical.

Explore the Magic! Check out the books featured in this adventure at:⁠⁠ www.thereadingbug.com/adventures/unicorn

The Fact Fly’s One Big Question

How do we make sound when we talk — and why does your voice sound so different when you hear it on a recording? Join Lauren and the Fact Fly as they investigate the surprisingly amazing science behind the most incredible instrument ever made: you. From the tiny vibrating vocal folds inside your larynx to the air from your lungs that turns those “little strings” into sound, this episode reveals how your body transforms a simple buzz into words, songs, whispers, shouts, and your one-of-a-kind voice.

You’ll discover why high notes and low notes work like tightening and loosening guitar strings, how your tongue, lips, teeth, mouth, skull, and sinuses all help shape sound, and why singing is basically “the voice box turned up to 11.” Then the Fact Fly takes a wild tour through the animal kingdom to find out how birds harmonize with themselves, whales sing across oceans, elephants communicate through the ground, crickets play their wings like tiny fiddles, and bats use sound to “see” the world. Plus: the mystery of why your recorded voice sounds weird — the answer involves bone vibrations, air vibrations, and the fact that everyone else has been hearing your voice differently all along.

Perfect for singers, talkers, animal-sound lovers, curious kids, and anyone who has ever heard their own voice on a recording and said, “Wait… is THAT what I sound like?”

Lauren's Little Bedtime Stories | Original Music

Deep in the forest, a tiny seed named Rue falls from her mother's branch and lands in the dark earth below — and immediately runs into a problem: she has no idea how to grow. She knows she's supposed to. She's watched her mother do it her whole life. But what if she grows the wrong direction? What if she gets it wrong? A well-meaning worm stops by, offers what limited advice a worm can reasonably offer, and suggests she talk to her mother. Then, traveling through the roots of the forest the way trees have always spoken to each other underground, her mother's voice arrives — and sings her a song. By the time the song is finished, something small and certain has shifted in the dark, and Rue finally understands that growing isn't something you figure out. It's something you simply begin.

Every Lauren's Little Bedtime Story includes:
Calming Relaxation: Gentle breathing exercises to help your body relax.
Original Bedtime Lullaby: Wind-down time as Lauren sings you to sleep.
A Full Original Bedtime Story: A whimsical story read aloud by Lauren.

A Reading Bug Adventure with Original Songs

Part 2 of 2. When the other garden bugs tease the Reading Bug for being different, she does what she always does — reads more books! And this time, they inspire the most fantastical adventure yet. Join Lauren, the Reading Bug and the Spelling Bee on a journey over the rainbow to the Land of the Unicorns!

Only, things may not be all rainbows and unicorns. On the other side of the rainbow is a grey kingdom ruled by a cold and powerful queen who hates everything unique.

With the help of Yeti, a shy young unicorn in hiding, we must find the courage to stand up to the queen, rescue our friend, and remind every unicorn in the land that what makes them different makes them magical.

Explore the Magic! Check out the books featured in this adventure at:⁠ www.thereadingbug.com/adventures/unicorn

Lauren's Little Bedtime Stories

Every autumn, Hazel the bear goes back to her perfect winter sleeping spot — except this year, a very polite family of hedgehogs has moved in and is absolutely not leaving. What follows is a tour of the wrong places: a cave that echoes her own yawns back at her, a hollow log she keeps rolling out of, and a fox named Rupert who answers the door with the energy of someone not expecting company. With a skeptical squirrel named Dot keeping up a running commentary, Hazel searches the autumn woods for the one spot that feels like somewhere-safe — and finds that the right place to rest was never going to be fancy.

Every Lauren's Little Bedtime Story includes:
Calming Relaxation: Gentle breathing exercises to help your body relax.
Original Bedtime Lullaby: Wind-down time as Lauren sings you to sleep.
A Full Original Bedtime Story: A whimsical story read aloud by Lauren.

A Reading Bug Adventure with Original Songs

Part 1 of 2. When the other garden bugs tease the Reading Bug for being different, she does what she always does — reads more books! And this time, they inspire the most fantastical adventure yet. Join Lauren, the Reading Bug and the Spelling Bee on a journey over the rainbow to the Land of the Unicorns!

Only, things may not be all rainbows and unicorns. On the other side of the rainbow is a grey kingdom ruled by a cold and powerful queen who hates everything unique.

With the help of Yeti, a shy young unicorn in hiding, we must find the courage to stand up to the queen, rescue our friend, and remind every unicorn in the land that what makes them different makes them magical.

Explore the Magic! Check out the books featured in this adventure at: www.thereadingbug.com/adventures/unicorn