Children & Teen Audiobooks

Children’s & Young Teen Books & Audiobooks

As a professional Master Storyteller who has run face-to-face sessions with children in over 3,000 UK primary schools across a span of over 30 years, the tales in my short children's novels and audiobooks are told in a way that opens horizons and invites age-appropriate discussion.

Stories that help British children recognise their identity and strengths

My books and audiobooks for children and young teens are written to do more than simply entertain. Each story gives young readers and listeners a way to explore British identity with themes ranging from London family and school life during World War 1,  to Christmas traditions, to our role in freeing slaves. Everyday life is explored through characters the children can recognise: ordinary families, children who feel different, and quiet heroes who make a real difference in their communities.

Together, The Diamond Ship, WP & Me: War Pigeons, The King of the Things and GobDrop & SnowShine help children:

• Understand key moments in British history through human, child-centred stories
• Explore and understand positive British traditions
• See how our society has changed and evolved, and why that matters
• Feel pride in the courage, resilience and creativity found in these islands
• Grow a stronger sense of self, belonging and responsibility to self and others

Whether read on the page or experienced as immersive audiobooks, these stories invite children into a shared cultural conversation about who we have been, who we are now, and who we might yet become.

Why the audiobook versions matter

Read by professional narrators hand-picked to fit the theme and flavour of each individual title, all four titles are also available as audiobooks on platforms such as Audible and Apple Books. This helps bring the stories to life for children who prefer listening, are developing readers, or simply love being read to.

Audio editions:

• Make the stories more accessible to neurodivergent children and reluctant readers
• Support classroom and bedtime listening, so stories become shared family or group experiences
• Help children internalise rhythms of spoken English, historical vocabulary and place-names

Hearing British voices tell British stories of courage, kindness and change helps young listeners feel that they, too, belong inside the bigger story of these islands.

GOBDROP & SNOWSHINE

Rumours, truth and the power of being small

GobDrop & SnowShine is a Christmas-based Santa adventure set in the North Pole for ages 5–8. It takes place deep inside a bustling toy factory-kingdom ruled by the traditions of the elves. SnowShine, Santa’s smallest elf, longs to be seen. He is constantly told that he is too small for serious tasks and finds himself overshadowed by the taller, louder and busier elves around him.

Meanwhile, the workshop echoes with spooky whisper-stories about GobDrop, the so-called Christmas Goblin, painted as a mischief-making menace who stalks the snowy edges of the kingdom.

One day SnowShine gets lost in the wilderness. There to his initial horror he is found by GobDrop, but he soon discovers that the tales were wildly incomplete. GobDrop shelters him and tells an older, truer account of Santa’s history – a version quite different to the folk-tales repeated in the toy factory halls. What follows is a story that turns the power of false rumour on its head, and shows how two perspectives can create two very different “truths.”

The adventure concludes with SnowShine saving Christmas. He realises that being small has  it’s own kind of magic. In the end, both elves and readers learn that size does not determine value, and that the quietest voice in the room sometimes sees the world most clearly.

This makes GobDrop & SnowShine an invaluable story for helping children:

• Recognise how rumours form and distort
• Understand that history and tradition often have multiple viewpoints
• Develop empathy for those who are excluded or misrepresented
• Celebrate their own traits, even when they feel “too small,” shy or different
• Realise that there is real magic in the world

In a British context, the book gently nurtures cultural empathy, critical thinking and self-worth: children learn that our narratives about people, places and even nations are often multi-layered, and that belonging is not about size, volume or conformity, but participation and contribution.

THE KING OF THE THINGS

Anti-bullying, celebrating difference, and the rewards of an honest day’s graft

The King Of The Things is a fantasy adventure for ages 7–11. Set in a small, traditional village plagued with folklore and superstition, The King of the Things centres on Hunch, a sensitive boy with a hunchback who is mocked and avoided because he looks different. Hunch, a thoughtful boy whose hunched back makes him the target of daily ridicule. He is ignored, mocked and literally pushed aside because he looks different from the other children.

One full moon night, after a particularly cruel bout of bullying, Hunch’s frustration finally boils over. He flees the village and runs straight into the forbidden forest that every adult swears no child must ever enter. The old warnings ring in his ears: “Strange things live in there, and nobody who goes in ever comes back.” Yet under the full moon’s glow, Hunch discovers that the grown-ups’ terrifying stories are only half the tale.

What unfolds inside those trees is unlike anything any reader or listener has encountered before. It is guaranteed to deliver a generous belly-flip of yuckiness before leaving a broad, involuntary grin on your face. In the process, Hunch meets the “Things,” learns why the forest’s reputation is so wrong, and discovers that he may not be the only odd one out in the world after all.

By the end, the book has quietly explored:

• How rumours can grow into fear
• How difference can become a form of strength
• How courage is often quiet, not loud
• How communities can learn to change their min

• Navigate bullying and exclusion
• The ethics of ‘do-your-bit’ for self and community
• Finding unexpected allies in nature and beyond
• Discover that “difference” and honesty can be a source of strength

This story supports anti-bullying work in schools by giving children an emotionally safe way to explore cruelty, shame and courage. It invites British children to ask: How do we treat the person who doesn’t fit in? How do we stand up for them – and for ourselves? What are the merits of trying our best to contribute versus just taking what we can?

In a country shaped by many waves of arrival and change, The King of the Things nurtures the idea that community is strongest when everyone, especially the “odd one out”, has a place at the table. It illustrates the reward in being polite and generous of heart, whilst also showing how trying to dodge fair play and take a free ride is unsustainable.

THE DIAMOND SHIP

True pirate history & liberating slaves on the open sea

The Diamond Ship is a historically-based slave-to-freedom pirate novel for ages 9–12. Based on a true 18th-century pirate voyage, pieced together from three-hundred-year-old diaries and historical records. It is the true, and previously untold, story about how British pirates freed slaves who then went on to claim back the toils of their labour - the very hoard of diamonds they had been enslaved to dig up for a Portuguese king! A story of poetic justice which has the added thrill of being the most valuable single hoard of treasure in pirate history! Aside from a handful of fictional characters, almost everyone and everything in the story really existed or happened in real life.

Through its mix of adventure, danger and moral choice, the book opens up:

• Britain’s seafaring and maritime history including life on a pirate vessel
• The realities of empire, trade and class
• Questions about justice, loyalty and what it means to “do the right thing”

Children follow a diverse crew, including a girl forced into life at sea, and see that history is not a dry list of dates but a lived experience full of tough choices. By the end, young readers come away with a deeper sense that British history is complicated, courageous, and very inspiring.

WP & ME: WAR PIGEONS

World War I through the eyes of a London child

WP&ME: War Pigeons is a historical fiction war and peace novel for ages 10–13. Written to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, WP & Me follows a London family living through the upheaval of war: rationing, queues outside shops, changes in the schoolyard and workplace, travel restrictions and a confusing, often alarming media.

Co-created with pupils at UK military-base schools, the story:

• Shows the impact of WWI on ordinary British streets and homes
• Highlights lesser-known heroes, including messenger pigeons and the children who care for them
• Draws gentle parallels with modern crises (from health emergencies to media noise)
• Fosters an awareness of what our British ancestors went through to ensure our liberty and the liberty of the European continent  

Young readers learn about sacrifice and service, not as abstract “patriotism,” but as the daily effort to look after neighbours, family and community. It is a story that calls for peace while honouring those who lived through war, inviting children to feel both gratitude and responsibility for the freedoms they enjoy today.