Audio Storytellers Are The Newest Way To Tell Your Child A Story

In today’s digitally-driven world, parents can find it challenging to pull electronic devices out of their kids’ hands. Even young children are consuming increasingly large amounts of screen time. In fact, “mobile media time” for children up to 8 years old tripled from an average of 15 minutes per day in 2013 to 48 minutes per day to 2017.

As parents search for new ways to engage their children beyond a screen, a new trend is starting to emerge: audio storytellers. Pinterest reported a 126 percent jump in searches for “audio storytellers” in 2018. So, could 2019 be the year audiobooks catch on for kids? It could be!

Adults have long enjoyed audiobooks to keep them company during a long commute. Seeing the audiobook or storyteller trend trickle down to the younger generation seems natural. The audiobook industry continues to grow quickly, with sales rising by nearly 23 percent from 2016 to 2017 to an estimated $2.5 billion.

So, tapping into the youth market not only makes good business sense, but also provides families with new ways to connect in a creative way with technology. As a result, companies are selling new gadgets to meet the increased interest. Here are a few you might want to check out.

My Fabulous Storyteller

My Fabulous Storyteller by Lunii ($70) is one of the newer products on the market for kids. Inside this simple-looking device are 48 downloaded stories for children to listen to and even interact with along the way. As listeners are able to choose the characters and the setting, think of it as a digital “choose your own adventure” story. The Luniistore digital library, which is available via download, has hundreds more stories to choose from once the kids are ready for more tales.

Echo Dot Kids Edition

Lots of us have an Amazon Echo or an Amazon Echo Dot (the smaller version) in our homes to play music, tell us the weather, and capture a grocery list. Now Amazon also has its own Echo Dot Kids’ Edition ($70) specifically for the youngest members of the family. The Echo Dot Kids’ Edition comes with a free one-year membership to FreeTime Unlimited, which has access to more than 1,000 Audible books for kids.

Storynory

Another audio storyteller is Storynory, a website that holds a collection of kid-friendly stories available to listen to online. Whether your children like fairytales, classic stories, myths, poetry, or some other genre, the website has a sizable collection that will keep any child’s imagination going for quite some time. Stories by Lewis Carroll (“Alice In Wonderland”), Charles Dickens (“A Christmas Carol”), L. Frank Baum (“The Wizard of Oz”), and Rudyard Kipling (“Rikki-tikki-tavi”) are among some of the classics you’ll find on Storynory. The best part? They’re all free.

Happy reading and listening!