← Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
The Sleepy Halloween Train 🚂 💤 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. Tonight is the night you've all been waiting for. It's the first Halloween koala moonstorm of 2025. Yes, that's right. The Halloween train is pulling into the station. Toot toot. And we can all climb aboard. So what are you lovely lot doing for Halloween? I have an idea. Maybe you could dress up as your favourite Koala Moon character. I'd love to see you all as Cocos and Kiras and spaghetti yetis and roller skating cats. Hmm. Mull it over. And if you go for it, make sure you ask your grown up to share a picture with us via the link in the show notes. 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. 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. Coco and Kira are getting into costume now, ready for a night out on the Halloween train. It'll take them and their friends through sleepy forest to a ginormous pumpkin patch where they can all pick a pumpkin ready for carving. And then there'll be plenty of candy to nibble on the journey home. First though, let's relax. This mini meditation is by Claire, aged 15. Thank you, Claire. Snuggle up, everybody. Tuck the covers up to your chin and take a nice deep breath. And take another one. Now another. Are you feeling nice and calm? Imagine that your thoughts and memories from the day are a big ball of knotted up yarn. Pick up the yarn and take a look at it. Turn it around and around in your hands. What colour is your yarn? Yellow? Red? Purple? As you're turning it, look for the end of the string. Do you see it there, poking out from the side? Give it a little tug and let the thought ball unravel in your hands. Look at all of those thoughts and memories. Acknowledge them and then put them down. Let them untangle themselves until your mind is as calm as the bottom of the sea. Now take a deep breath. Now another and another. And if you're ready to depart, let's begin. The Sleepy Halloween Train by Jane Thomas Koko is running along a corridor. Woo. He calls as he goes, his arms held out in front of him. Woo. I'm coming for you. Kira giggles and rushes into her room. She's about to close the door when she hears a bump, a thump and a muffled ow. Coco has ended up in a crumpled pile on the floor and he's fighting with the bedsheet, trying to get it off his head. Kira wants to help, but she's too busy laughing at him, wrestling with the big white sheep. Koko eventually frees himself and rubs his head, a grin on his face. I don't think I put the eye holes in the right place, he says, giving the wall a glare. That's what you get for dressing up as a ghost and trying to scare me, says Kira. Anyway, I thought we said you'd be a skeleton this year. She's right, as she so often is. Koko and Kira have agreed to go on the Halloween train, dressed traditionally as a skeleton and a big round orange pumpkin. They've spent ages making their costumes, Coco making a stretchy suit patterned with bones and then helping Kira with her ginormous pumpkin out of a cardboard box, bits of foam and a lot more orange paint than they'd expected. It's an especially enormous prize winning pumpkin they end up creating for the little panda. The Halloween Train comes by every year, whisking creatures from Sleepy Forest off on a magical train ride to the biggest pumpkin patch you've ever seen. It's so big it takes Captain Feathers of Albatross Airways a full 15 minutes to fly from one side to the other. There are rows and rows of pumpkins ranging in size from those as small as a curled up mouse to some as big as a decent sized hippo is the perfect place for all the animals to go and get their Halloween pumpkins and bring them home for carving, ready to be placed out on their doorstep with flickering candles and twinkling fairy lights inside. Once Koko is disentangled from his sheet, he helps Kira climb into the cardboard box pumpkin they made earlier. Then Coco puts on his skeleton suit and turns around for Kira to help with the zip. She tries her best to help him, but her arms are now mostly inside the pumpkin, so she can't be particularly useful. But eventually, with a bit of a wiggle and a lot of a jiggle, Koko is zipped up and dressed as well. They walk side by side to the train station, picking up friends along the way. So. So by the time they arrive at Sleepy Forest Central, there's quite a gaggle of the traditional pumpkins, cats and friendly witches, along with a clutch of firefighters, adorable dinosaurs and more. Together, Cuddle the puggle and her kangaroo friend Kevin make up a bright pink horse. They all stand around on the platform, an air of excitement building as the time of the train's arrival gets closer and closer. Then they hear a whistle in the distance and everyone cranes their necks to see, spotting a plume of smoke that gets bigger and bigger as the Halloween Express nears. Finally, the bright orange train chugs into the station, A squeal of brakes and a final puff of smoke bringing it to a halt. A frazzled flamingo, who more often than not is on the Salty Wallop Express but once a year, takes on the role of conductor on the Halloween train, leaps out and starts opening all the doors, ushering the creatures of Sleepy Forest aboard. Kira needs a little help squeezing through the doors since she and Koko created such a very plump costume. But finally, with a satisfying pop and a plop, they're through and finding seats in the carriages. Silver and gold cobwebs have been hung from the ceilings and on all the tables are smiling carved pumpkins lit from inside by fireflies that dart around and around. The flamingo conductor's cap, sat at an angle, dashes through the carriages, checking everyone is aboard, reading out names from his clipboard, and then rushing to the next carriage and repeating the process. When he's quite sure nobody has been left behind, he leaps outside and runs along the platform, closing all the doors, all the while blowing his whistle with a final two to the whistle and one last giant long legged leap. In a puff of pink feathers, the flamingo dives back onto the train and it sets off. The flamingo rushes through the carriages, giving out bags of goodies to everyone. Koko reaches in and finds marshmallows in the shape of ghosts and witches made from licorice and tiny orange pumpkins. That are really hard candy with a gooey, sticky, delicious caramel center. There are spiders, webs made from sponge sugar and toffee apples and candy floss, and huge muffins from Betty Badger's bakery that are each decorated with a smiling skeleton made from icing. The thing is, with Kira being in a huge pumpkin outfit with only little bits of her arms poking out, she finds it incredibly hard to eat anything. Her hands don't reach her mouth. But after a little experimenting, they soon realise that Koko can feed Kira her treats. So they sit there. A skeleton feeding a pumpkin, passing ghosts and witches and spiders webs across the table. The Halloween train rattles along. Carriages filled with chatter outside. The huge orange pumpkin of the sun has already settled into its bed and stars have come out to light up the sky. All the owls and bats of Sleepy Forest have gathered to follow the train. So there are hundreds of them, fluttering about in the darkness and swooping through the skies. It's their special night of gathering to have huge parties, meeting up with distant cousins, you know, second cousins twice removed, that sort of thing, who they haven't seen since last year's Halloween festival. Sometimes they just fly around clouds of bats heading in no particular direction. And sometimes they organise themselves so they can fly together and look exactly like a witch on a broomstick heading up towards the stars. Or a giant pumpkin somehow floating through the sky with masses of fireflies lighting up the inside. Koko and Kira head to the end of the carriage and pull down the window of the door so the cold night air rushes in and ruffles their fur and they wave at the owls that come swooping by, wings outspread, eyes wide and smiling, performing tricks and manoeuvres that they've spent the last year practicing. An upside down owl doing a loop, the loop at top speed, all the while keeping up with the chugging train is really quite something. As they watch the bats take on the shape of a black cat flying by on a broom. Kira remembers she learned a poem about a train in school. She scratches her head, trying to remember how it goes as they dash through a station. The poem comes back a little more clearly. She sees hedgerows all lit up from within by glow worms and distant hills are silhouetted against the sky that's now bright with stars. And she remembers a little more of the poem. She taps her paw up and down on the edge of the carriage in time to the train, feeling its rhythm as it rushes along the tracks faster than fairies, faster than witches. Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches and charging along like troops in a battle. All, all through the meadows, the horses and cattle, all of the sights of the hill and the plain fly as thick as driving rain, and ever again in the wink of an eye, painted stations whistle by. Koko smiles at his sister, seeing her with her eyes closed, paw beating out the rhythm, frowning a little as she tries to remember all the words. I like those first lines, says Coco, the bit about faster than fairies, faster than witches, as if they've heard the bats take up a new formation and suddenly there is a fairy dashing along beside the train, her wings outstretched and her skirts flapping in the wind, and a golden wand clutched in her hand is lit by a gathering of fireflies. Koko and Kira applaud the bats, who all smile and wave and then flutter off back to the party in the sky. The frazzled flamingo comes dashing past, reminding everyone they must step down from the train in neat orderly lines when they arrive at Pumpkin Patch Station in a few minutes time, and everyone nods and solemnly promises they'll behave. Of course, after the train screeches into the station with a squeal of brakes and a final puff of smoke rushes past the windows. Everyone looks at everyone else gives a squeak of excitement and charges for the doors. So it is that animals squeeze their way onto the platform, some emerging from the jammed doorways with a satisfying pop sound. Koko and Kira's perfect pumpkin costumes aren't quite as round by the time they emerge. They've been a bit squashed against walls and doorways, but it's fine. They're still very obviously something that's almost nearly probably a pumpkin. Cuddle and Kevin get temporarily separated so they can disembark, and there's half a horse trotting one way and the back legs trotting another for a while before somebody matches them up and they're complete again. The flamingo just sighs and chuckles. It happens every year, every single year he asks everyone to leave the train in a quiet and orderly manner and every year they promise, and every year they get too excited and this chaos happens. Still, he has a bit of peace now, so he takes his damp lavender scented cloth, places it gently over his eyes, and settles down for a rest among the comfy cushions of his seat. In an hour's time he'll need to get everyone back on board and home to Sleepy Forest, but for now he can have some moments of calm. The moon is huge and round and orange and has taken over the sun's role of being the Giant pumpkin in the sky. The stars are all extra pointy and perfect and bright as if they're glowing ends of witches wands floating around the night sky. Everything is so bright and clear that the pumpkin patch almost seems to glow in the darkness. Now that they're out of the cosy carriages, everyone starts putting on hats and scarves and gloves. It doesn't matter that a ghost wouldn't normally have a bright red scarf wrapped three times around its neck, or a pumpkin wouldn't normally have a blue hat on top of it. After all, there's something quite wonderful about being out at night when you can see your breath in the air, all silver by the light of the moon. But there's only something wonderful about it if you're nice and warm at the same time. Coco and Kira have decided they're going to get one ginormous pumpkin between them this year rather than one smaller one each. As you head along the pumpkin patch field, the pumpkins get bigger and bigger, which means the heavier the pumpkin, the further you have to carry it. Some of the mice and squirrels and smaller creatures of Sleepy Forest stick near where the Halloween train drops them off. Rolling pumpkins, sometimes only the size of golf balls, but back towards the train. But some of the larger creatures, the elephants, the rhinos and the like, start trotting towards the far side of the field. Their policy when it comes to pumpkins is go big or go home. Koko and Kira set off after them, two squashed pumpkins bouncing up and down and jiggling about as they jog along the rows. Meanwhile, Cuddle and Kevin have realised they need to get one pumpkin between them because it's jolly hard being half a horse and carrying a whole pumpkin by yourself. And they're sat discussing what size they're going to get. They've both sat down and turned to each other, which makes for one very peculiar looking bright pink horse all hunched up in the middle of a pumpkin patch. Koko and Kira keep on going past the pumpkins as big as a curled up cat, pass the pumpkins that would make a very solid side table, and pass the pumpkins as big as Kira's Snow White panda belly. Eventually they come to the pumpkins so big they aren't quite sure they'll fit through the train doors, and they decide they've gone far enough. Looking around, Koko and Kira can see that hardly anyone else has come this far, and those that have are already on their way back to the station. An elephant salutes them with his trunk as he sets off great head pushing against a giant pumpkin almost as big as him, A rhino spears his pumpkin on his horn and then trots off down the row, unable to see anything of where he's going and relying on his resident oxpecker friend to guide the way. As they reach the exit to the pumpkin patch, an owl with little round glasses perched on his nose checks names off a list. Everyone can pick one pumpkin and one pumpkin only. That's the policy. A tiny pumpkin that could fit in a thimble is worth just as much as a pumpkin that could be carved into a decent sized carriage. It isn't only the creatures of Sleepy Forest who will come here tonight, you see, so the owl has to make sure everyone gets a chance to take a pumpkin home with them. Koko and Kira finally make their selection and start pushing it back up the field. They try carrying it, but it's enormous and far too heavy, so their only choice is to roll it. Kira is the first to remove her woolly hat, and shortly afterwards, Koko removes his too. It's getting hot. They take off their scarves and then their gloves, and it isn't long before they're there, huffing and puffing away in the darkness in nothing more than their costumes. If anything, the pumpkin seems to get heavier as they go, probably because it's picking up mud from the field with each and every roll. Ba bump it goes. Breathe, push, ba bump. Breath, brace, push, ba bump. And so it goes on for step after tired step. Koko sometimes peering around the side to see if the finish line is any closer, but somehow it never seems to be. He decides to count steps for a while to see if that helps. 1. He whispers to himself, pushing his feet into the ground. 2. As he presses his shoulder into the giant pumpkin. 3. Pushing and waiting to hear the ba bump as the pumpkin rolls a little further forwards. 4. Breathing deeply and slowly focusing on the job. 5. Pushing as hard as he can so Kira can push a little less. 6. Watching the owl go swooping by overhead, keeping track of where everyone is in the field. 7. Feeling his legs pushing against the weight of the pumpkin. 8. Waiting for another ba bom as the Pumpkin rolls again. 9. Closing his eyes and squeezing them shut as he focuses. 10. Pressing the pumpkin with his paws and his shoulders as hard as he can. Koko looks up again and sees they've moved forwards and they're getting closer and closer, inch by inch. Faster than fairies, faster than witches, he mutters to himself as he keeps pushing bridges and houses, hedges and ditches. He smiles as he thinks really, it should be slower than sloths and slower than snails inching along like a boat with no sails. They're just a few meters from the exit owl and almost everyone is back on board with their pumpkins, even Cuddle and Kevin, who finally agreed to get two medium sized ones over a couple of trips. When the flamingo removes his lavender towel and steps from his guard's van and blows the whistle to let everyone know it's a few minutes before the Halloween train departs, Koko and Kira look at each other with alarm and then press their shoulders against the pumpkin again and keep on pushing. From the train comes the sound of cheering as everyone starts shouting encouragement at them. Come on Koko, you can do it. Calls Fritz, leaping up and down in the window of the carriage. You've got this, Kira. Keep going. Shouts Prickles through a mouthful of ghost marshmallows as they pass the owl. He runs his beak down the list, then checks off their names and they start to push the giant pumpkin onto the platform. There are hisses of steam and clouds of smoke as the train begins to wake up and by now all the bats and owls in the sky are fluttering above the station, cheering Koko and Kira and shouting down to them. It is Mumbles the elephant who helps the most, though, stepping down from the carriage and squeezing the pumpkin through the doors, he scoops up Koko and Kira with his trunk and hauls them into the carriage so the train can blow its whistle and start to pull away from the station. The flamingo gives an exhausted toot of his whistle, which is barely heard by anyone, so loud is the applause for the brother and sister who got the very biggest pumpkin on board. There is chatter for a while, everyone comparing pumpkins and saying how they're going to carve them and how hard it was to pick exactly the right one. And then the flamingo comes through and asks everyone to stand up, so they stand in the aisle and he bustles about with the seats and the tables and suddenly everything is transformed and there are rows of bunk beds lining the carriages. On one of the beds is a rolled up blanket and a big plump pillow, and there are little curtains that can be closed so every animal can disappear into a cosy little nook and nap their way back to Sleepy Forest. Koko is so tired from pushing the pumpkin he can barely climb the ladder up to his upper bunk, but he clambers up one step, two steps, three steps, finally four steps and he falls onto his bed. He unrolls the blanket and wraps it around himself, pulling it right up to his chin and curling up in a tight little ball in his bed. The pillow is so soft beneath his head and with the curtains closed and the train's gentle rhythmic rattle as it rumbles along the tracks, it's only moments before he's fast asleep. At night as the train heads through the darkness faster than fairies, faster than witches, bridges and houses, hedges and ditches, Koko dreams of flying on the back of an owl over the pumpkin patch. The owl swoops and soars, great wings outstretched, and Koko is soft and warm buried in his feathers, and together they rise high, high into the sky, so high even the biggest pumpkins become so tiny they're just like grains of sand, so high they're rising above the tallest trees of Sleepy Forest, looking down on the silver river that threads its way this way and that, so high that Coco can reach out and touch the stars. Ra.