Story Time: Petula El-kindiy Narrates Classic Bedtime Stories

Children can drift off to the radio hosts’ exclusive new bedtime stories series on SoundCloud every Monday

GOSEGO MOTSUMI

In this time of heightened anxiety and uncertainty around the Coronavirus, even the best sleepers are tossing and turning while children’s sleeping patterns have been disrupted. It is for this reason that radio host and media personality, Petula El-kindiy, is helping the whole family ease into a restful night of sleep by recounting bedtime stories for free on SoundCloud.

She officially launched the “Petula El-kindiy’s Classic Bedtime Stories” series online on Monday last week and wants to narrate a new story on the same day each week. “The Bedtime Stories Series is an audio series of classic bedtime stories for the whole family,” she said in an interview. “The stories are audio stories that I narrate and paint a picture for the family to listen and enjoy. The series was inspired by firstly having to read bedtime stories to my daughter every night and also my love for storytelling.”

The current stories that are available and shared on the platform are tales that have been written and published by other authors and El-Kindiy helps narrate them to her audience. The narration of bedtime stories to children has formed a pre-sleep ritual in cultures around the world, with the narrator usually being an adult or at times a sibling. The source of such stories has ranged from mythology, fairy tales and popular folk tales to the narrator’s creative imagination or even personal experiences.

El-Kindiy said: “The first story on the platform is by North Parade Publishing’s “Beauty and the Beast.” I intend to write my own original stories to share one day. I thought it was important to do these stories because many families and children around the world have had their normal routines disrupted because of COVID-19. So I thought this would be a nice form of entertainment for children during this time of uncertainty and extreme boredom.”

In recent times, it has become increasingly evident that the role of bedtime stories extends far beyond making a child go to sleep peacefully. Bedtime stories have proven to be more than a cultural phenomenon because they have the potential to have a cognitive impact on the development of children, as well as a therapeutic effect on them. Reading to children makes them love books so they become readers later in life.

“The stories are mainly for children under the age of 10,” El-Kindiy explained. “However, you can still enjoy them no matter what age you are. I know I still definitely enjoy a good story at my age.”