Empowering Stories to Teach and Entertain, Girl Tales

FPG Birthday Giveaway

I wanted to say thank you for listening to the podcast as we celebrate the second birthday of FPG this month. It has been so much fun connecting with so many of you and introducing you to all the cool podcasts and the people who make them. As a thank you for another great year, I wanted to give one of my listeners a package full of my favorite things.

I asked on my Instagram stories what y’all wanted for the giveaway and the people have spoken. The favorite things package was definitely the winner. All you have to do to get your name in the drawing for the giveaway is to fill out a quick demographic survey linked above. I’ll choose one of you to win the favorite things package at the end of the month. Thank you so much for filling out this survey. It’ll help me make sure to find podcasts that you will enjoy and find sponsors that align with your wants, needs, and desires. 

Starting Girl Tales 

I am Rebecca Cunningham and I make podcasts for kids for a living. I live in Brooklyn, New York with my partner and our dog. I love going to the movies.  My favorite movie I’ve seen recently is the Barbie movie. I got the idea for the Girl Tales podcast in 2016.  There were clues and little hints popping up in my life that led me to decide to make this show. I was a nanny for a lot of different families in New York City.  I was also a theater director. 

A lot of the kids in New York didn’t have access to screens. They had no screen time whatsoever, which is wonderful and I fully support that. However, when you’re with a kid for eight hours a day there are no breaks, especially if they don’t have siblings. It can be challenging for the caretaker when I was trying to make a child dinner, and the child really wanted my attention but I couldn’t do both things at once. I enjoyed listening to podcasts and it made me wonder if there are any podcasts that children would enjoy.

I went on the Apple Podcasts app, and I searched for kids podcasts. Stories Podcasts was the first one I found and he sat and listened to an episode by himself. He did nothing else, just sat and listened for about half an hour. I got to make mac and cheese and had a minute scroll on my phone and relax. I was amazed and I thought that I could probably make a podcast one day. Since I didn’t have a specific idea for it, it just stayed on the back burner.

Teaching Valuable Lessons

When the 2016 election happened, I was with another family. As I was watching Hillary’s concession speech I was holding a little girl in my arms. It made me think, how am I going to let girls everywhere understand that you can work really hard and get the thing that you deserve to get? How can I teach girls that you’re worthy of everything that you’ve ever dreamed of? How can we change the narrative with empowering stories? That is where Girl Tales began. 

I went to my friend Chad and told him that I’d really like to make a podcast. Neither of us knew how to do it but he really wanted to make one too. We raised $5,000 and we started our first season. We were recording in my tiny little studio apartment in Brooklyn. Now we are six seasons in and on our 188th episode.  

A Story for Everyone 

Every child deserves to be at the center of the narrative or to identify with the protagonist. That is a really big mission of Girl Tales. Regardless of gender, race,  background, or ability, every single kid can identify with a protagonist at some point in one of our stories. It’s something I believe in and it’s something I truly believe changes people. Once you identify with one character you realize you’re not alone. 

I grew up in the closet. I’m gay and once I started seeing gay characters on television it changed my entire life and it gave me hope. That is what we try to do. These empowering stories allow girls to see themselves as the characters. 

Adventurous Stories 

Girl Tales is whimsical and calming. Some of our stories are adventurous. We want to encourage kids to take risks because girls are less likely to take risks. It’s whimsical, it’s fun, it’s adventurous, it’s a lot of different things.

We cover a lot of different stories, so you can tune in one week and it’s a very calming bedtime story and the next week it’s an adventure to a far away land. It just depends on the week.  

Connect With Girl Tales

You can find Girl Tales Anywhere you get your podcasts. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, everywhere. Our website is Girltalespodcast.com.  

Empowering Stories of Immigration

My current favorite is the episode that we recently won the Webby Award for. We won for best kids and family episode and the episode is called La Bestia.  It tells the story of a little girl named Anna and her mother as they journey from Central America up north to the United States. The story talks about all of the different challenges that Anna has to face on her way to San Antonio. 

It’s a really beautiful and touching story. The story is based on Jasmine’s sister and mother’s story coming to the U. S. We’ve gotten a lot of really great feedback. Parents have told us how much it meant to them and how it started this conversation about immigrating to America.  So many people have a similar story and it talks about how immigration stories are valid. It talks about why some are considered legal or other people consider it illegal, and if that’s fair.  It’s definitely one of our best stories for sure.

Best for Elementary Ages

We recommend the podcast for ages five to ten. I recently had an 11 year old reach out to me and one of the moms who reached out has a child who is four. If you’re questioning whether or not your kid should listen, I recommend listening to one episode first. You can listen to an episode first and then decide if it works for your family.