500 Words' Bedtime Stories

The BBC Radio 2 500 Words competition was one of the biggest children's writing events in the UK, attracting hundreds of thousands of entries from young writers across the country. This podcast takes the winning and shortlisted stories and gives them a proper production, with professional actors reading them aloud and hosts Dick and Dom providing entertaining narrative framing between the tales. The result is a celebration of children's creativity that doubles as genuinely enjoyable bedtime listening. With 130 episodes in the archive, there is a massive library to work through. Each episode typically runs 20 to 40 minutes and groups several stories around a theme, from friendship and animals to time travel and technology. The stories themselves are remarkably inventive, because they are written by kids aged 5 to 13 who have not yet learned to play it safe with their ideas. You get plots involving talking potatoes, accidental space travel, and dogs who save the world. The show ran from 2015 to 2020 and holds a 4.1-star rating from 32 reviews. While new episodes are no longer being produced, the back catalogue remains fully available and completely free. It is a particularly nice podcast to revisit because the stories feel timeless rather than topical. For families looking for screen-free entertainment that also shows kids what other children their age are capable of creating, this is hard to beat. It might even inspire your child to start writing their own stories.