Well hello beloved co-inhabitants of the third rock from the Sun! How are we all today? It’s been a warm day so I hope you enjoyed the sunshine responsibly i.e. drinking gallons of water and with good amounts of sun block slathered on you! Today’s story is by an author who needs no introduction. What is special about this episode is that I have never narrated his books despite the fact that I absolutely love his works and that he is one of the best writers in the world, having written nearly 50 books with more than 20 of those, intended for children. Of course it’s Roald Dahl! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼❤️❤️ He was born on 16th September 1916 in Llandaff, Wales and died on 23rd November 1990 in Oxford. Today’s book is The Magic Finger - a vivid, magical story that will fill your mind with wonder and make you think about the consequences of actions - such an important thing to do! I hope you enjoy it 💪🏻💯🙏🏼 Stay safe, stay hydrated and keep reading. Much love, toodles 🙂⭐️☀️☀️🤩😍

Hello hello lovely people!! Hope you are all doing wonderfully well and enjoying the summer holidays! It’s been a while since I uploaded a story so I decided today is as good a day as any other to do this :-) and what better to get back to it than with a story I heard and read a hundred times as a child and that I’m certain many of you big and small peoples would have enjoyed too. It’s Hansel and Gretel I’m talking about and I’ve shared the unabridged version here. The story was originally written in 1812 but the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm made many changes to it, right through to 1857, so it’s the latter that is what you’ll be hearing. I must confess that it’s the first time I’m reading this version myself! There are many stereotypes in here which may not surprise you at all. I hope though that you’ll enjoy it nonetheless with the belief that ultimately good will always prevail even if it takes a long time to do it :-)) I hope you have a fabulous evening day and wish you happiness always. Stay safe, take care and keep reading 😍😍📚📚📚 Until we meet again, it’s toodles from me xx

Hello my lovely people. As I mentioned in my episode uploaded just before this one featuring the very large, the very strong and the very lazy lion Shanumugam, I’ve been on a trip down memory lane today, going through the hundreds of recordings on my phone and happened to stumble upon these two absolutely inspiring and heartwarming stories that form part of the Little People Big Dreams series. This series was created by the fantastic Isabel Sánchez Vegara to celebrate little girls with dreams who became women with great vision. From designers and artists to scientists, all of the people in this revolutionary series went on to achieve incredible things, yet all of them began life as a little child with a dream. The stories featured in this episode are of none other than the feisty Maya Angelou and the selfless Audrey Hepburn. I hope you enjoy them! Stay safe, stay happy and keep on dreaming and working towards making them come true! Have a grand evening 🙏🙏🤗🤗💕💕⭐️⭐️⭐️👑👑👑🌈🌈🌈🎼🎼📚📚📚

Hello hello small and big humans! Hope you’re well and have had a good weekend :-) I was rummaging through all my old audio recordings and stumbled upon this one from a long long time ago or as Anikka used to say when she was very small - long time back ago 🥰🥰 Sigh, how time flies ...... So this lovely little story that has been told, retold and rehashed in many ways and many Indian languages is about Shanmugam the lion who is of course be the king of the jungle but all he does is sleep. Worse, he snores in a peculiar way that made little Miss A giggle a lot 🤣🤣🤣One day, another lion enters the jungle. He is lean and mean. he is Gabbar Singh. The other animals are frightened, but how can they get the lazy Shanmugam to awake and save them? Listen on to hear what happens and how!! Have a fabulous evening lovely people ! Stay safe, stay happy and keep the fire burning within 🥰🥰🥰🎼🎼💪🏼💪🏼📚📚📚📚

Hello hello wonderful folks and folklets! Hope you’ve been enjoying the hot spell of sunshine 🌞 I know it might be too warm for many of you but for me, this is probably exactly where my Indian bones want to be now as I think of home and the familiarity, warmth and love it holds. Only fitting then that I take this opportunity to share my first full audio book, The Hidden Pool written by who other than Ruskin Bond, the master story teller who evokes such intense emotions and vivid imagery with one fell swoop of his pen. The Hidden Pool is Ruskin Bind’s first ever children’s book and despite having been published in 1966, is still just as fresh and relevant today as it was then! This audio book has 10 chapters and is a first without my partner in crime not because I didn’t want her as my accompanist but because I wanted to do it one go and capture each sentiment, in its truest purest form. I do hope you enjoy it. For those listeners that are not familiar with some of the words, I hope this will not take away from your enjoyment but rat why add a little mystique to it :-) in any event, most words are contextual so my sincere hope is that you will still be able to draw much joy from it! Enjoy the evening and have a glorious weekend ahead! Stay happy, stay safe, keep hydrated and keep reading! ❤️❤️❤️❤️🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🌈🌈💯💯💯💯☀️☀️🌼🌼📚📚📚📚📚📚

Hello wonderful earthlings! Hope you’re well and enjoying each day that presents itself in the best way possible 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🤗🤗🤗💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💐💐🌞🌞This fabulously put together book is a collection of “100 tales of extraordinary women” ranging from Ada Lovelace to Rani Lakshmibai, Astrid Lindgren to Aung San Su Kyi and Katherine the Great to Malala Yousafzai, all incredible women who weren’t damsels in distress and didn’t need someone to save them. Instead they used their intellect, determination, kindness and indomitable spirit to scale new heights and do what people thought was impossible. A truly inspiring book for girls but equally empowering and informative for boys, I hope you’ll enjoy this series! Girls, remember, you can do ANYTHING. Boys, if you’re tempted to ‘help’ because a girl might need it due to her gender, refer to statement above :-) As we move ahead in this world, it’s vital that we have not just fearless girls but strong boys who can understand, accept and be secure in this reality and hence are just as much feminist as we are. I am sure most of you (parents and younglings), have read this book but I for one love coming back to it, reading it with Anikka, reminding her of how these unstoppable women changed the world in their own ways and how the world is her canvass. I hope you savour these again or for the first time. Stay safe, be happy, dream in and don’t be afraid to fail in the quest of those dreams. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💐💐🌼🌼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼💞💞💞💞🌈🌈🌈🌈🌞🌞🌟🌟⭐️⭐️⭐️💥💥💥💥☀️☄️

Hello good folks! Welcome to another edition of The Stories we Tell! Today’s wonderful, simple and completely tale tells us something which is quite relevant in today’s times - the creation and distribution of ‘fake news’ :-) I hope this piques your interest and you’ll enjoy listening to this story just as much as I did reading it. Have a lovely evening, stay safe, keep reading and find reasons, no matter how small they are, to be happy 🙏🏼🙏🏼🤗🤗❤️❤️🌼🌼💐💯💯

Hello hello, ye wandering book lovers! How are we today? From today, I’m going to start another series on everyday philosophy for kids by the great thinker, Rumi. Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi was born in Balkh Persia in what is now Afghanistan in 1207, that’s like mannnnnnnnnyyy mannnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyy suns and moons back !!! He was a Sufi mystic, philosopher and lover of humanity. He spent most of his life searching for divine inspiration and love. The dance of the dervish (Whirling Dervish) is said to be inspired by Rumi’s own movements in his garden as he danced in grief to mourn for the death of his friend Shams. In today’s tumultuous times, Rumi’s teachings are even more relevant. I hope both parents and kids alike will savour this. Keep reading, stay safe, seek that which makes you happy and have a lovely day! 🙏⭐️🎼📔📔📓📌✡️✡️💜💜

Hello hello lovely peeps, it’s been a dreadfully long time but I’m back with more stories and a poem too for good measure this time. Of course I had to mark my return with the name’s Bond, Ruskin Bond (and you’ll hear some cheesy stuff in the course of the stories 🤣) which will make you chuckle :-) While one story talks about the joys of idleness and sitting upon old walls dreaming, the other that I actually recorded on Ruskin Bond’s 86th birthday last month is called The Thief and is a touching story of trust and relationships. And the poem is heartwarming in every way, talking about the simple things, something I know we have all gone back to as we face this extraordinarily trying time. I Hope very much that you’ll enjoy listening to these two lovely stories and the poem and that the thoughts will resonate with you. Stay happy, stay safe and keep reading . 🌈🌈🌈🎼🎼🎼😍😍📜📔📔📙📙📕📕📓📓🥰 p.s. don’t miss my personalised copy of the book. Eeeeekkk so exciting even though it was my brother who stood in line and got it for me when he went to Landour 🥰🥰🙏🙏🤗🤗 thank you Gaurav and thank you for your words Mr Bond 🙏🙏🤗

Hello hello smalls and not so smalls! Hope you’re all well and managed to soak in some well deserved Vitamin D in the sunshine xx Today’s story is special for a variety of reasons not least because the main character’s name is Annika which is why I bought the book in the first instance and although it’s spelt differently from my A’s name, it’s a wonderful message to stay calm and think of positive things in the face of a problem. I bought this book for my A when she was 3 when we regularly read it for a couple of years until it was forgotten and picked up again only a couple of weeks back. What a joy it is to revisit books - I find time sees to fly way too quickly these times so it reminds me to hold onto my munchkin and those moments as dearly and tightly as I can! I hope you all enjoy it, have a lovely day xx