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Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
Manu's Magical Mail 💌🐬 Soothing Children's Story For Sleep
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- [00:11]
Coco
Hello and welcome back to Koala Moon, a podcast of original children's bedtime stories and meditations designed to make bedtime a dream. Coco's pulling back the heavy velvet curtain of the clubhouse tonight for for Jade and Micah, two adventurous, animal loving sisters from South Taranaki, New Zealand, and also for Jarrah from Canberra, Australia. Plus, we're wishing a belated Happy Birthday to Heidi, who's been subscribing since 2023. Thank you for your support, all of you who help us continue this lovely podcast. You know who you are. I wonder if we have any fans in Hawaii? Actually, that's where tonight's stories set. In fact, it's quite an international one. How many countries get mentioned? It's close to the start. If you close your eyes and listen, you will soon feel like a world traveler. I promise. Before we begin, a quick message for the grown ups. If you'd like to support our podcast, enjoy ad free listening, unlock four bonus stories per month and much, much more. You can join Koko Club. Subscribe in just two taps via the link in the show notes, but now here's a quick word from our sponsors.
- [01:30]
Carissa
Hey parents. I'm Carissa, the host of sleepwave, a sleep meditation podcast from the creators of Koala Moon. We understand how much you appreciate the bedtime stories on Koala Moon for your little ones, but as a mother myself, I know that parents need their relaxation time too. With soothing meditations and nostalgic stories, Each episode of sleepwave is crafted to help busy minds slow down so you can wake up feeling well rested tomorrow. Each night, I'll guide you to sleep with beautiful visualizations and calming journeys which listeners describe as perfect for drifting off to. Not sure where to start with meditation? Try one of my favorite episodes, A Mental Vacation, where I'll lead you through, using your imagination to experience the deep relaxation of a holiday without ever leaving your bedroom. You can discover sleepwave on all major podcast platforms. Simply search sleepwave, Sleep Meditations and hit follow so you can easily find the show later tonight. Sweet dreams.
- [02:41]
Coco
Okay, let's meet our friend Manu. His father works far away, so he lives with his mum and he sometimes misses his dad a lot. But luckily they find a magical way to communicate to each other even when they're far, far apart. Let's rest in bed and breathe nice and steadily, thinking of nothing much and just breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Maybe stretch out your hands and feet, fingers and toes. Waggle your head from side to side a bit. Now come to rest and maybe touch your fingertips together as I begin. Manu's Magical Mail by Jane Thomas. This is a story that's set from one side of the world to the other. It stretches all the way from the islands of Hawaii to the skyscrapers of Hong Kong. And it tells the story of three very ordinary, very average, very you could bump into them on any street sort of people. Oh, and it also features a magical tree. That's important to know too. The first of those very ordinary, very average people is a boy called Manu. When he was born in a hospital in Japan all of six whole years ago, his mother said, I want him to feel the freedom of the world. I want him to feel as if he can dive with the dolphins and saw with the eagles. And the nurse listening in suggested that he be named Manu, a name that means bird in Hawaii. Manu, said his mother, repeating it a few times to test it out. She looked down at the tiny bundle wrapped in a soft blue blanket and whispered, Manu to him. And the tiny bundle's eyes opened, huge and wide and blue, as blue as the ocean, and he giggled. Manu was born in Japan, and by the time he was six years old, which is the age he is now, although he's very nearly seven, as he likes to remind anyone who will listen, he had lived in Japan and Italy and Kenya and Canada and Peru and now Hawaii. He had been born in the country where a silver train could rush off from a skyscraper city and be in the snow capped mountains winding through fields of wildflowers in just a few hours. Then he'd lived in a place where people rushed around on scooters, all buzzing like wasps as they charged from one place to the next, going past ancient Roman ruins and out towards sparkling seas. Being very tiny when he lived in those places, he didn't remember much beyond the sounds, not really. But he was old enough in Kenya to remember looking out at vast open plains and watching giraffes wandering by and elephants spraying themselves with mud and water to cool off under the hot African sun. In Canada, he remembered these wide open spaces, all pointed mountains reflected in almost impossibly blue lakes. And camping under the stars. And in Peru, deepest, darkest Peru, where he kept expecting to bump into Paddington's great Aunt Lucy at any moment. He remembered these ceremonies that were filled with every colour of the rainbow and the way some of the mountains were striped with pinks and reds and greens. But now Manu lives in Hawaii, which basically means he. He lives on a magical green island that along with a Handful of others juts out of the deepest, bluest sea you can imagine. There are some golden sand beaches, and others are the blackest sand, which sparkles and shines in the sun. Turtles laze in the calmer waters, and when Manu goes surfing, learning to catch the waves with his bright red board, he often looks across and sees dolphins riding the waves with him. I said at the beginning that Manu was very ordinary, very average. And even though he's lived in all these places, that still remains true. He's crazy about basketball and baseball. He loves eating pizza and chicken wings more than anything else. And give him half a chance, and he's there, in front of his computer, busy playing games. His mother works in the local school. She's a teaching assistant, and she helps those who have problems getting their letters in the right order when they're trying to spell, or their numbers the right way up when they're trying to do sums. She loves singing and dancing while she's cooking in the kitchen, or curling up under a blanket on the couch in the evening watching television. And she spends half her time driving Manu to a basketball game or a baseball match or a guitar lesson or to the beach for surfing. She joked so many times that her name should be Taxi that Manu decided to make up a special new name for her. And he calls her Cab Mama. It's sort of important that Manu and Cab Mama get along, because Manu's father is often away, far, far away. He does one of those jobs that means he's always travelling. And if you ask Manu what his father does, he says he isn't quite sure and shrugs and says he thinks it's something to do with sails. And to be quite honest, if you ask Catmama, she gives exactly the same answer. All Manu knows is that more often than not, his father is far, far, far away. I said at the start, this story also involves a magical tree. And don't worry, we're getting there. We're almost there. It's coming up just now. But first you need to know that in general, Manu tries not to miss his father. Or if he is missing him, he tries not to let Cabmamma know. It makes Cabmamma sad when he's sad, so he hides his feelings and instead shares them with the wind and the waves. Somehow, though, Catmama always knows. Mothers can be pretty amazing like that, knowing what you're feeling before you've even figured it out. Manu's father is now in Hong Kong, which means, as Manu is yawning and waking and stretching his way into a day. His father is turning off the light and burying himself beneath some blankets. They are tipsy, turvy in their days and nights and it's very hard. Ok, I'll say it. It's impossible for them to find times when they're both awake to sit down and have a chat. So when Cabmamma knows, she just knows that Manu is missing his father, she will go to a secret corner of the wardrobe and dig him out a letter that his father wrote long before he ever went away. There's a whole stack of these letters he's written and each one contains promises of what they will do together when he's back home. So Manu reads all about climbing trees and trekking up volcanoes and looking for colourful parrots. And he reads specially written stories that see him making best friends with a monkey and getting up to all sorts of mischief. And sometimes there's a clue in the letter and Manu has to work out what the clue means. And then he'll find a secret hiding place somewhere in the house and sometimes in the garden. And his father will have packed away a little surprise for him to find. Since Manu's father has been working in Hong Kong, Manu has found a chocolate bar, a book and a brand new computer game, the last of which was hidden in the back of the fridge. And Manu couldn't believe he'd never spotted it in there. Well, Manu is now six years old, very nearly seven, and he realised for the first time the other day that perhaps, maybe, possibly, his father might miss Manu when he was away. Manu realised this right in the middle of a geography lesson, and he'd immediately dropped his pencil, stood up and said aloud, oh, wow. Everyone in the class had looked at him and giggled, and his teacher had turned around from the board and raised an eyebrow and Manu had gone bright red and plumped himself back down into his seat. But he hadn't forgotten his thought. So when he met Cab Mama after school, he said he wanted to send a special message to his father. All the way from Hawaii to Hong Kong. She said with a long, low whistle, that's a terribly long way. And for a moment Manu's heart had dropped, thinking perhaps it was an impossible ask. But then she'd leaned in and whispered to him, I know just the way we're going to go find a magical tree. She had taken his hand and together they walked towards the beach that Manu knew and loved. So well, but instead of going down the path that led to the water and waves, Cab Mama turned to the left. They walked for a full five minutes before they reached a towering tree that had round leaves the size of an elephant's footprint. Ta da, said Cadmama, waving at the tree with a smile, and Manu looked at her with big eyes. She nodded and pointed at the tree, so he went over to take a closer look. First he checked the bark and the trunk, but there was nothing odd about that. Next, he climbed up some of the branches and couldn't see anything strange about those either. Finally, he reached out to one of the leaves, and then he saw writing was scratched into the leaves. It's called an autograph tree, said Cabmamma. And let me tell you, for anyone doubting this, this tree is as real as you or I. Cabmamma picked up a small stone and reached out to a leaf, using the sharp edge of the stone to write the word hello on it. See? She said. You can write anything you want on the leaves of the tree. Go on, write a message for your father. Manu wasn't really sure what she meant by this, but he took a small, sharp stone and carefully wrote a message onto a leaf. Dear FA Papa, he wrote, for that is what he called his father. Far, Far Away. I got a home run in baseball yesterday. I wish you could have seen it. I miss you. Love, Manu. Manu looked up at Cab Mama, and she nodded and smiled and said okay. They would come back tomorrow and see what happened. And while Manu slept far away on the other side of the world, a man who answered to the name FA Papa was waking up in Hong Kong. The sun was only just beginning to rise in the sky, and he didn't need to go into the office for a whole two hours yet. So he decided to go for a walk to the top of a nearby hill. When the day is only just starting, not many others are awake and there's this special stillness in the world. It happens absolutely everywhere, and if you've never seen it, you must try sometime. Everyone talks only slightly louder than a whisper, not wanting to be the one to break the silence. And the birds are extra cheerful and the flowers are reaching up more importantly than ever, and everything looks clean and fresh. After a good night's sleep, Far Papapa walked to the very top of the hill and looking across, was surprised to see an autograph tree standing there. He went over for a closer look and one of the branches started to wave at him. Far Papa stepped back to check and no, he was right. All the branches were still except for one. So he walked up to that branch, and then one of the leaves began to twirl and dance. And again Far Papa stepped back to see if he was right. And he was just that leaf was dancing and moving in the early morning light. He reached up to it and read a message. Dear FA Papa, it began, I got a home run yesterday. I wish you could have seen it. I miss you. Love, Manu. FA Papa, as you know by now, was a very well travelled man. He'd been to almost every corner of the world and he knew a lot of its secrets. But he had never in all his years, exchanged messages with the help of an autograph tree. But it was unmistakable. That was his son's handwriting. And there were only three people in the world who knew the name Farpapa. He searched around for a stone with a sharp edge and then went to the leaf next to the one with Manu's message. Dear Manu, he wrote. Congratulations, my baseball wizard. The morning sun is dancing off the skyscrapers. The city looks beautiful. I wish you could see it. All my love, Far Papa. When Manu woke the following day, Cab Mama was already by the side of his bed. She told him they had a special trip to make before they went to school that day. So Manu rushed through his breakfast and cleaning his teeth and all those very unexciting things we have to do every single day. With his backpack filled with schoolbooks on his shoulders and his lunchbox clutched in one hand and Cab Mama's hand clutched in the other, they walked towards the beach and turned left before the water and waves and went towards the autograph tree. Everything was very still in the early morning, but one of the branches of the tree appeared to be waving at Manu. He let go of Cadmama's hand and stepped forwards. Then one of the leaves started to swing and dance in a breeze that wasn't there, and Manu went to look at it. He instantly recognised his father's handwriting and read aloud the message that had been written just 12 hours before. Dear Manu, he read. Congratulations, my baseball wizard. The morning sun is dancing off the skyscrapers. The city looks beautiful. I wish you could see it. All my love, Far Papa. Manu's mouth and eyes were open wide and he turned to Cab Mama, pointing at the leaf. How? He began. What he said. Who? He added. It's the magic of the autograph tree, Cadmama whispered. And then she told him the secret of the trees. She told him that they all have roots that go deep, deep into the ground and have how all these roots are connected with all the other trees. And she told him how these roots go so far and wide that they even reach beneath oceans and across continents and make their way under mountain ranges and far beneath the shifting sands of deserts. So every single tree in every corner of the world is connected. And when Manu had written his message for Far Papa on his leaf, the trees had spread the message all around the world, the letters whisking themselves along the lengths of the roots that twisted and turned. And finally the letters found exactly the right roots and exactly the right tree, and the letters rearranged themselves on one of the leaves and waited until the person who needed to read the message came along. Then the invisible breeze that rush around the world had shaken the branch and shaken the leaf. She explained that everything in the world is connected, and that even when we're far, far away from someone we wish we could see, there are still all these invisible threads holding us together so we're never really separated from them at all. And just as we're part of the leaves on the trees and the roots that disappear beneath the seas, so we are the dolphins that dance in the waves and the ripples on the sea and the birds that soar in the sky. We are the clouds that drift from one land to the next, and we're the elephants that roam the grasslands, the camels that wander the deserts, the monkeys the that swing through the trees, and the dragonflies that shine like emeralds and sapphires on reeds that dip into lakes on their way to school. Manu reached down and took a handful of golden sand and let it pour through his fingers and Cab Mama said, yes, we are a part of the shifting sand. And he touched the papery petals of a bright red hibiscus flower, and Cab Mama nodded and said, yes, we are a part of the flowers that light up the world. A whale rose and fell in the waves and Cabmamma said, yes, we are the dolphins and whales, the silver fish that swim in shoals that sweep and swirl through the waters. We are the corals that grow to look like huge white tabletops and the ones that look like plump red sofas hidden beneath the waves. Far away on the other side of the world, Far Papa rose early in the morning and walked up the highest hill and went to the autograph tree and read Manu's message that was on the only leaf that danced in an invisible breeze. Dear Far Papa, he read, you suddenly don't seem so very far away at all. I'm going surfing tomorrow. When I see dolphins, I will know it is you. Love Manu. And when Manu walked down to the beach with his bright red surfboard tucked under his arm, he took the path that turned left instead of the one that went straight towards the water and waves and rushed up to the single fluttering leaf on the autograph tree. Dear Manufacturer, the message read, I think today I will be a turtle, not a dolphin. Look out for one lazing around on the edge of the water. That will be me. Love, Far Papa. Manu giggled and thought how silly Far Papa was, because everyone knew the turtles were on one side of the island, far away from the dolphins and the waves. But as he stood in the shallows and watched the waves rolling in, something tapped his ankle and he looked down to see the flipper of a turtle, and he swore. The turtle gave him a wink as he passed slowly by. The turtle floated this way and that, not rushing to get anywhere, and Manu laughed as he watched the turtle roll up a ball of seaweed and toss it towards him. He picked up the seaweed and threw it back so it landed next to the turtle's head, and for five whole minutes they played the game until the ball of seaweed fell apart and drifted out to sea in a series of long green strands. Dear Manu, the message on the autograph tree read the following morning, I loved our game with the seaweed. Today I'm going to a temple. I will light a candle just for you. Love, Far Papa. And as he walked home from playing basketball with his friends, with Cub Mama's hand held in one of his and the basketball tucked under his other arm. Manu looked into the windows of the houses as they passed and saw candles lit and flames flickering in impossible breezes as if they were waving at him. And even though Hawaii and Hong Kong are on the far sides of the world, as he went to bed that night, Manu knew that really the world is very small indeed. He knew that even when we're far away from someone we wish we could see, they aren't really so very far at all. Because he knew the secret of the world, thanks to the magic of the autograph tree, that every root of every plant is connected, that they thread their way beneath the oceans and under the mountain ranges and below the shifting sands of deserts. He knew that he was the dolphins and the turtles, the waves that crashed on the beaches and the winds that shifted even the highest trees. He was the rain and the sunshine, the moon and the stars, the golden sands on the beaches and the bright green grasses on the hillsides. When Manu was born, the nurse had looked at the tiny bundle wrapped in a soft blue blanket and given him his name. It means bird, she had said. And now for the first time, he knew what it meant. He knew what his mother had meant when she said she wanted him to know he could dive with the dolphins and soar with the eagles. So as he fell asleep, it perhaps isn't surprising that Manu became an eagle with gold tipped wings that soared across the world and floated in the sky above the city of Hong Kong, watching a man who only three people in the world knew was called Far Papa as he walked up the highest hill from where he stayed and walked towards the elephant footprint sized leaves of an autograph tree. And in his dream, Manu as an eagle with gold tipped wings, floated to the top of the tree and watched as Far Papa knelt on the floor and looked for a sharp edged stone to write a message to his son, scratching it with a smile onto the leaf that would send his note to a green island that rose in the middle of the deepest bluest ocean. The eagle rustled the leaves and fa Papa looked up and smiled. And another secret was added to the thousands in the world that all those tied with invisible threads to others far, far away will.