← Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
The Chicken Who Wouldn’t Cross the Road 🐓 💟 Cozy Kids Bedtime Stories
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Foreign hello and welcome back to Koala Moon, a podcast of original bedtime stories and sleep meditations for kids designed to make bedtime a dream. I want to start by giving a massive hello, welcome, welcome and thank you to our wonderful new Coco Club members. Hello to Annabelle from Boulder, Colorado, Aria from Pennsylvania and Ellie in Columbus, Ohio, a whole group from the usa. I hope you enjoy your special bonus episodes that are coming up. Honestly, they are some of our best yet. Ooh. Now then, some exciting news from Sleep hq. Do you listen to our sister show Koala Shine? If not, why not? But really, there are some amazing daytime stories over there for you to listen to during playtime or on car journeys. And since they aren't for sleep, they are full of crazy adventures. And get this songs. That's why we are proud to announce that Koala the Album is now available wherever you listen to your music. We've taken all the hilarious, groovy, silly tunes from the show and turn them into an album just for you. So just search Koala Shy in the album and hit save or download to listen to the whole thing tomorrow. 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 Coco Club. Subscribe in just two taps via the link in the show notes, but now here's a quick word from our sponsors. Does your little one love the adventures of Bluey? I know I do. What if they could talk and play with Bluey, Bingo or Muffin right in their own room with the all new Bluey Chatmates? Now they can. Each figure comes to life with a press of the nose, saying 10 fun phrases straight from the show. Perfect for little hands and big imaginations. You can collect Bluey, Bingo and Muffin or look out for special versions like Bingo on her scooter or Rita with her granny mobile, complete with granny glasses and a grabber tool. They're poseable, totally adorable and ready for bedtime adventures or daytime play. And kids will love recreating their favorite Bluey moments or making up brand new ones. And with more characters to collect, there's always a new adventure waiting to unfold. Bluey Chatmates are available at all major retailers. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Every night here on Koala Moon, I help families wind down with bedtime stories. But you know what keeps parents up at night worrying about whether we're preparing our kids for the real world, especially when it comes to money. I've got a 15 year old daughter and an 18 year old son. And while some parts of parenting get easier as they grow real conversations independence teaching them about money remains challenging. The truth is kids won't truly learn to manage money until they get hands on experience. That's where Greenlight comes in. Greenlight is the easy, convenient way for parents to raise financially smart kids and families to navigate life together. It's a debit card and money app made for families. Parents can send money to their kids and monitor spending and saving while kids build money, confidence and financial literacy skills. The app includes a fun chores feature for setting up tasks and rewarding kids with an allowance. When I think about doing dishes for a few cents as a kid, I realise how motivated I would have been seeing the money arrive. I remember my own kids asking me to look after their first savings money from the Tooth Fairy, birthdays and their pocket money. What fun it would have been to see their savings grow in their own money app. I wish I'd found Greenlight sooner. Maybe that's why millions of parents trust and kids love learning about money on Greenlight, the number one family finance and safety app. Don't wait to teach your kids real world money skills. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today@greenlight.commoon that's greenlight.commoon to get started. Greenlight.commoon now then, back to tonight. Are you ready to head to Sleepy Forest? We we're about to meet a fluffy little chicken who's going to cook a barrakindi. She's new and she lives not all that far from school, but she keeps turning up late anyway. You know why? Because she's one of those peculiar chickens who won't cross the road no matter what. Let's join her and her new teacher as they try to get her out of this pickle. This is the chicken who Wouldn't Cross the Road By Jane Thomas Dorothy Feathers, or Dottie to her friends, is a new resident of Sleepy Forest. She and her family moved there from Puddlefoot Farm and are slowly settling into their new home. There's her mother and father and Mr. And Mrs. Feathers and her six brothers and sisters. Dotty has three older and three younger siblings, so she's slap bang in the middle of them all being right in the middle. Dottie hasn't yet figured out exactly who she is. She knows she isn't old and she isn't young. She isn't big and she isn't small and she knows she isn't the fastest or the slowest. But those are all things she very much is not and nothing that she is. While it is entirely possible to spend an entire life like this, not really knowing who you are, it is definitely better if you can figure it out. That's when all the other things start to fall into place, because Dottie isn't really sure of herself. She's scared of an awful lot of things. She jumps when bowls fall onto the floor, or when the wind slams the door, or when a breeze rustles branches of a tree against the window. She finds big books alarming because they are also very full of words. And she finds little books alarming because there are hardly any words at all. In fact, Dottie can find a reason to make almost anything scary. And because she's a chicken, this very much includes crossing the road. Roads have long been associated with chickens. The age old question why did the chicken cross the road? Has a thousand answers, none of which apply to Dottie, because Dottie, in her entire life, in all the six years she has spent spinning around on this planet, has never once intentionally crossed a road. Oh, she has ended up on the other side of roads, quite by accident, of course. Sometimes her mother will cover Dottie's eyes with her wing and rush her across the road so quickly she barely knows it's happened. And sometimes Dottie has been on a bus that has gone one way and then reached a roundabout and turned around and now all of a sudden she's on the other side of the road. And once she was bouncing on a friend's trampoline and she bounced so high and so hard that she clean shot off the trampoline and ended up landing with a bump and a thump on the far side of the road, stars dancing around her head as she sat there in a pile of fluff and feathers wondering what on earth had happened. Dottie's fear means that when she needs to go somewhere, she spends hours and hours planning a route. She's absolutely fine with crossing rivers, for example, as long as there's a sensible bridge in place, one of those that has a beginning and a middle and an end and handrails along the sides. And if there are trees on either side of the road that happen to have grown so tall and wide that they touch in the middle, Dottie is able to climb her way up one tree and across the branches and down the other. She's lived in sleepy forest for a few weeks now and has gone around many of the areas, carefully noting bridges and adjoining trees on her maps. It has helped her with her route planning. If they knew about this or noticed her brothers and sisters would no doubt help her out with her problem. But the older three don't notice because they are busy tearing ahead and rushing wherever they're going and the younger three are busy ambling behind and slowing everything down. I should make it clear at this point, in case you're worried, that Dotty's brothers and sisters love her very much indeed. She's always the one they go to when they need a hug because she has the softest feathers and gives the warmest hugs and says the loveliest things. When the older ones don't feel like being grown ups, they go and spend time with Dottie and listen to the lovely stories she tells. And when the younger ones feel like being grown ups, they also spend time with Dottie, hearing about the world from someone who's a few years older and a few years wiser. In fact, if you asked any of her brothers and sisters who was their favourite, even though they know they shouldn't have favourites, they would all look sideways quickly to check nobody was listening and then whisper Dotty in your ear. The day has finally arrived when Dottie has to make her way to the Kookaburra Kindy for the first time. Although she lives just across the street from an Alligator Stop, the bus used by the vast majority of the students, she has to find a different way. The older three brothers and sisters heading to Sleepy Forest elementary assume Dottie has travelled with the younger three and the younger three heading to Duck Duck Daycare. Assume Dottie has gone with the older three. But no, Dottie has packed her bag and pecked her mother on the cheek to say goodbye. And she's following the blue line she's drawn on her map that will guide her from home to Kookaburra Kindy without crossing a single road. The problem is she's never walked the route before. She just took a guess as to how long it would take her. And Dottie hasn't brought her watch with her today, so she has no idea how much time is passing. As she stops to sniff flowers and watch streams and count clouds, she gets distracted by golden butterflies and emerald green dragonflies and big fuzzy black and yellow bumblebees. She gets caught up listening to songbirds singing and warblers warbling and seeing all the animals of Sleepy Forest heading out to start their days. So by the time Dottie arrives at Kookaburra Kindi, everything is completely quiet. She's surprised for a moment, wondering where everyone might be. She thought there would be dozens of children being dropped off to go to school and plenty of them hanging around in the playgrounds and on the fields. But no, there isn't a soul in sight. Dottie follows the signs to the reception where she finds an elderly rabbit who with a string of pearls around her neck and a chunky blue cardigan sitting behind an old fashioned typewriter. There's a calendar on the wall behind her and endless post it notes with reminders to do this and that. Dotty plucks up her courage and approaches the desk relieved to find the rabbit is a very kind warm hearted creature who guides Dottie to her new classroom. A Mr. Twinkle meets her at the door, a peacock with a stream of turquoise and emerald and jade feathers following behind him. He shows Dottie to her place on a circular table and she looks around the room that is painted to make it feel as if she's under the sea with bright blue colours at the top of the walls and the darkest blues at the bottom. Mr. Twinkle flies back up to a golden hoop that hangs in the centre of the ceiling and he swirls around looking down at his class and leaping back into the middle of the lesson that Dotty interrupted. When break time arrives, Mr. Twinkle asks Dotty to stay behind. You were a little late this morning, he tells her. She steals a glance at the clock. Her beak falls open in horror. But Mr. Twinkle, it's two in the afternoon, she says. Mr. Twinkle's eyes twinkle and his colourful feathers flap and shake as he chuckles. Well yes, you were indeed very late this morning. So late that I believe you had no morning at all. At least not in my classroom. Maybe try and be on time tomorrow. Dottie nods her head quickly up and down, promising to do better the next day. She forgets to see how long it takes her to get home from school, so isn't able to make a better plan the following morning. But Dottie is determined not to get distracted by bees and butterflies, songbirds and warblers. She focuses on following the blue line on her map and trotting across the bridges she's found and climbing the trees that help her get from one side to the other. And when she arrives at Kookaburra Kindi, exactly the same thing happens as the day before. There is nobody around and the playgrounds and fields and entrance are quite empty and Dottie has to walk by herself to Mr. Twinkle's classroom. She knocks at the door with her beak and he comes to the door with a flourish of fluttering feathers beaming down at her and welcoming her to the class. Much better, he announces only an hour late today. Keep this up and you'll be here before me tomorrow. Dottie tries to smile because she knows from the twinkle in Mr. Twinkle's eye that he's only being kind, but she feels very foolish indeed. Everybody else has made it there on time. Everybody else already has their workbooks on their desks and is taking notes about the lesson. As she walks slowly home, she checks the route against her map, seeing if she can't find any shortcuts to save herself a little time in the morning. She manages to find one little corner that can be avoided and one little bridge that will take perhaps a whole minute off her morning walk. But she isn't convinced this will be enough. And although she sets her alarm for Silly o' clock the next day, she worries that it won't go off and spends the whole night sitting up in bed staring outside until the first hint of sun starts climbing over the horizon. As soon as there's enough golden light spilling out into the day, Dotty clambers out of bed, grabs her school bag and starts walking along her new Blue Line route. She can't help but cluck in amazement when she arrives at the school and again nobody's there. The fields are empty, the playgrounds are empty, the entrance is empty. And feeling very silly and very tired indeed, she makes her way to Mr. Twinkle's classroom and pecks at the door. Only this time Mr. Twinkle doesn't come and open it. Nobody does. Dotty swallows hard and plucks up all her remaining courage and turns the handle, daring to just walk into the room. Only the door doesn't open. It is locked. Dottie spins around, wondering what to do, when she spies a clock on the wall. She looks at it and shakes her head and looks again and realises that Mr. Twinkle is absolutely right. She is there a whole two hours before school is even meant to start. Dotty's so tired and doesn't want to walk all the way back home again and all the way to school once more. So instead she settles down on the bench outside the classroom and decides to have a doze. And that is how Mr. Twinkle finds her two hours later when he arrives at school, sweeping into the corridor with a rustle of fine feathers. Gently, so very gently, he coughs beside Dottie just loud enough to wake her, but not enough to startle her. Dottie, going from asleep to awake in a single moment, leaps from the bench and starts stammering Some apologies. Mr. Twinkle listens to her, his head on one side, wondering what he's going to do with this lovely new chicken who's having trouble getting to his class on time. When Dottie has finally finished mumbling about this, that and the other, Mr. Twinkle says kindly, do you think you could show me on a map where you live? I'm curious how far you have to come each day. Dottie eagerly pulls her map from her bag. I can go one better, she says proudly. I can show you exactly the route I take to school. Mr. Twinkle looks at the blue line that meanders this way and that, the most indirect line between two points that he has ever seen. He spends a lot of time trying to work out what it is that is curious about the route little Dottie takes, but try as you might, he can see no logic to it. She doesn't seem to be going via the park and distracting herself with the swings and the slides. She isn't deliberately going past Betty Badger's bakery and spending time with a pile of doughnuts and delicacies. He gives in and shakes his head, telling Dotty she'll have to explain why she's picked this route and not, as he gestures towards the map, this much more obvious one. Dotty looks down at the ground and mutters something that Mr. Twinkle doesn't quite hear and he asks her to repeat it. She takes a deep breath, then looks up and says as loudly as she dares, I don't want to cross the road. Mr. Twinkle is quite taken aback, asking her why she doesn't want to cross the road, because, Dotty explains with a sigh, everyone is always asking, why did the chicken cross the road? Why did the chicken cross the road? And it got me thinking. There must be a reason, everyone asks, and that something must have happened, something that means the chicken should never have crossed the road. She looks down at the ground again. Well, it makes sense to me, she finishes with a sigh. Mr. Twinkle flutters his emerald and turquoise feathers and thinks to himself what a very smart little chicken this is he has here. She has certainly put a lot of thought into a very simple question. He chooses his words carefully. Do you know, he says at last, I've never thought about it that way before. But now you've said it, that makes perfect sense. Dottie starts to smile a little. Really? She asks. Really really, Mr. Twinkle assures her. But do you know the answer to the question everyone asks? Dottie shook her head. She'd only ever heard the question over and over and never listened to the answer, not properly. Well, the answer is usually just this. The chicken crossed the road to get to the other side. Dotty blinks. That's it, she says. Mr. Twinkle smiles at her. That's it. So they aren't saying that the chicken was silly for crossing the road. And why would the chicken think to do that? Mr. Twinkle shakes his head. Not at all. The chicken proves they're one of the smartest creatures in the world, for the smartest creatures often give the simplest, most obvious answers. Why would you cross a road? Well, to be on the other side of it. That, to me, seems like the most sensible of all reasons to cross a road. Dotty thought about this. It was a whole new way of looking at the problem. But still, she wasn't sure that she could just go and cross a road. She had lived her entire life avoiding doing just that. And to suddenly start waltzing across roads just because Mr. Twinkle had explained that actually it would be a very smart thing to do wasn't all that easy. To change a habit takes time. Not a single moment Mr. Twinkle seemed to guess what was going through her mind, so he led her outside. Out by the school gates was a black and white crossing painted in the road, and as Dottie and Mr. Twinkle stood on one side, a beaver in a bright yellow coat went and stood in the middle with a big stick that looked like a lollipop in her hand. On it were painted the words Stop Children Crossing. Thank you. And as the beaver stood there, a dozen little creatures crossed over the road, all of them stopping to say hello and thank you to the beaver, who smiled and waved at them one by one. When the last of the little creatures was safely over the road, the beaver went back to the side again. I think, said Mr. Twinkle, this is a good starting point. Let's cross the road with Mrs. Belvedere, shall we? She does a very good job of making it absolutely safe. Dotty checked that Mr. Twinkle would come with her, and his immediate, of course, was enough to reassure her. So when another group of little creatures had gathered at the far side, Mrs. Belvedere walked into the middle of the black and white crossing and held out her lollipop and waved for the creatures to start coming. Dottie and Mr. Twinkle started from their side too, Dotty walking forwards in quick jerks and then sudden stops, and she rushed past Mrs. Belvedere and then had to rush back again to say hello and thank you in a very hurried little voice. She felt terribly proud of herself once she'd made the crossing and, pulling out her map, saw just how long it would have taken her to get to this point if she'd avoided using the black and white pathway specially made for her and others, to cross the road safely. Mr. Twinkle guided her further down the road until they came to a spot where there were lamp posts with buttons that could be pressed. A bright red turtle glowed on a light on the far side of the road, and Mr. Twinkle pointed it out to Dottie, saying that as long as the turtle was red she must stay where she was. She didn't have to wait long before the lamppost started beeping and the turtle went Green and Mr. Twinkle led the way across the road. Dotty stared at the green turtle the whole time, worrying it would turn red, but of course it didn't. The green turtle knew just how long it would take people to get across, and it shone and shone, giving everyone, even old creatures with bags of shopping, plenty of time to cross the road. But what if there's a Crossing without Mrs. Belvedere and without a red or green turtle? Asked Dotty. What if I need to cross a road without one of those? Mr. Twinkle guided Dotty to a small lane at the back of Kookaburra Kindy. It was a very quiet lane indeed that hardly anyone used, and he said that this was the sort of road she could cross without the help of a turtle or Mrs. Belvedere. But first she must look left and right and left and then right again, and when she was quite sure nobody at all was coming, she could walk across the lane. That whole morning was life changing for little Dottie. She didn't love crossing roads. The question was always there at the back of her mind one way or another. But she could cross roads, and that was the important bit. The next day it took her just 10 minutes to walk to school, the route a fraction of the one she'd taken the first time, and on the way back from school she let herself stop a little and smell the flowers and watch the butterflies and the dragonflies and the bees and listen to the songbirds and warblers. And even with all of that, she still got home in plenty of time to do her homework and have her tea with her brothers and sisters and take a lovely warmed by the sun dust bath before bed. Dottie climbed into bed that night, very proud of herself indeed, and very grateful to Mr. Twinkle. She would always love crossing bridges and looking down at the streams and rivers, she thought to herself as she snuggled down into her bed, and sometimes she loved climbing trees and leaping across branches and using those to cross roads. So she would keep doing that too, but just by looking at the question a little differently. Just by understanding that actually getting to the other side of the road was a good thing, she had changed how she would live in the world. She slept soundly that night, not worrying about alarms or roads or being late or being early. And the next day, she told herself as she drifted off to sleep, the next day she would ask all her brothers and sisters to walk to school with her just so she could show them all how good she was crossing roads. Now maybe she didn't need to be the chicken in the middle who kept the older and the younger brothers and sisters apart. Maybe instead she could be the chicken in the middle who brought them all together.