Reading
Circle Round
Kids appear to settle in for folktales from many cultures, performed as radio plays with a cast and music.
Circle Round comes from WBUR, Boston’s NPR station, and from a few episodes it plays like a small radio theater for folktales. Stories drawn from many cultures arrive as full productions: tricksters, clever farmers, talking animals and brave young heroes, each voiced by actors and threaded with original music. Episodes land between 15 and 25 minutes, which suits a car ride or the quiet stretch before lights out. Themes such as kindness, patience and courage sit inside the plots rather than on top of them. Each one closes with a short activity or question meant to start a conversation, and coloring pages accompany many of the tales. The archive is deep, with some longer multi-part adventures for kids who want to stay with a story across several sittings. The youngest listeners may enjoy it most with a grown-up nearby to talk it through.
- Ages
- Ages 3 and up
- Works on
- Web browser; iPhone and iPad app; Android app
- Topics
- Reading, Creative play
- Languages
- English
- Listed
- 2026-10-18
What kids do
- Listen to a folktale radio play
- Talk through the closing question
- Color a page from the story
- Follow a multi-part adventure
Who it suits
Ages 3 and up. The publisher provides this age guidance.
Notes for parents
Produced by WBUR in Boston. Episodes are audio only, so kids who don’t read yet can follow every story just by listening.
What you need
- A podcast app or web browser
More Reading
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- Reading Eggs: Pre-reading, first reading, systematic phonics and later comprehension are split into separate programs aimed at different ages.
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- Hooked on Phonics Learning: Guided reading activities come with an ebook library meant to go alongside the lessons.
- Teach Monster: Reading for Fun: Recipes, signs and instructions are the reading material in a village adventure where helping characters earns books for a monster’s shelf.
- Vooks: Animated storybooks with narration, where each word is highlighted as it is read aloud.
- Endless Reader: Animated words are built letter by letter, dropped into short sentence puzzles and then acted out in a little scene.