School Reading List Children’s Literature Podcast

School Reading List Podcast – our latest children’s literature episodes

About the School Reading List Podcast

The School Reading List Podcast is a children’s literature podcast that recommends books you’ll want your children to read and books you’ll wish you’d read as a child.

Each one of our children’s literature and teen books podcast episodes features a rundown of the latest fiction and non-fiction children’s and YA book releases; a top 30 books to look out for in the next month; a time travel feature profiling an author from the past; reader questions and comments, new author shout outs, occasional interviews, and deep dives into teaching topics and wider primary and secondary and literacy and English teaching educational themes.

We also highlight trending issues in the world of literacy education, #kidlit and #YAlit book publishing relating to schools and school libraries, run downs and previews of upcoming fiction and nonfiction titles and much more.

It can be hard for busy English teachers to keep track of all the great new books being released each month! We hope this podcast will give you some useful ideas for stocking up your school library, finding the ideal books for your children at home, or choosing your next smash hit classroom reader.

The School Reading List podcast is available on all major podcast listening platforms and podcast directories. Please see the button links at the bottom of this page for more information.

We are happy for genuine educational, publishing and book-related websites to link to our podcast.

Did you know we can offer free "open-mic" style guest slots on our children's literature podcast for children's book authors, educators and literacy innovators?

If you are interested and you would like to submit a monologue for inclusion in an upcoming episode of the School Reading List podcast, do get in touch with us by email to discuss your idea!

Your monologue might be an enthusiastic 5-10 minute promo introducing your new book; a passionate op-ed style think-piece about a current issue in English teaching or literacy education; an in-depth feature about a reading-related app or gadget you might have developed or used recently; or something else that you have a burning desire to talk about and tell to the world!

We can only accept "wav" files recorded in mono at 16-bit 44kHz or 24-bit 48kHz sample rate. There are various free apps for your computer or phone that make it easy to record and download high-quality sound files. Audacity is a free application for Windows and Macs that will record high-quality sound files. Cleanfeed is a website app that offers free facilities to record and download a 'piece to microphone' using your laptop or computer. And it's even easier if you have a mobile device or smartphone. Auphonic & Auphonic Edit (Android) are recommended, and Garageband by Apple is also an option for iPhones and iPads.

Sound files tend to be large and cannot be sent by ordinary email. Instead, we recommend WeTransfer, OneDrive, DropBox or GoogleDrive to share the sound file with us.

Once we've received and downloaded your sound file, we'll take care of the audio mastering and mixing for inclusion in a forthcoming episode, and we'll let you know when it's been published and unleashed onto the wider world!

Podcast open mic and monologue terms. Any submissions must be voice-only. We cannot accept content with music or sound effects. Please remember this is a children's book podcast. We cannot accept political, religious, discriminatory, misleading, indoctrinating, offensive, or inappropriate content. Please see our podcast host's terms of service. Any content must be performed by the submitter, who must be an adult over the age of 18. Also, we cannot accept any content that is not compatible with teachers' standards or could bring the teaching profession into disrepute.

If you are interested in being a guest on the School Reading List podcast, do get in touch using our contact form.

We are happy for bona fide book publishers, authors, illustrators, publicists, literary agents and print journalists to quote limited excerpts of our podcast for marketing and editorial purposes, in print or online.

If you found this free podcast useful and you would like to help - please consider a donation through the 'Buy Me a Coffee' service. Thanks.

Music licensing attribution

Background classical music for old-fashioned second-hand bookshop soundscape:

Music files sourced from Chosic, which are licensed under CC Public Domain.

Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 – I. Molto Allegro by Mozart
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492 by Mozart
Violin Concerto no. 3 in G major, K. 216 by Mozart
Handel, Largo (from ‘Xerxes’) by London Baroque Orchestra
Adagio for Organ & Strings in g minor by Albinoni
Vivaldi – Concerto for Mandolin and Strings in D, RV425 by The Milan Baroque Soloists
Air on the G String (from Orchestral Suite no. 3, BWV 1068) by Johann Sebastian Bach - The USAF Strings
Orchestral Suite no. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067 – 7. Badinerie by Johann Sebastian Bach
Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, BWV 1048 by Johann Sebastian Bach
We Wish You a Merry Christmas by United States Marine Band

Music files sourced from Incompetech, licensed with purchased lifetime extended licenses to allow for royalty-free commercial use.

Music bed for Two Books and a Wish segment - Kevin MacLeod - Dreamy Flashback – purchased lifetime extended license. License ID: FML-170359-11968
Music bed for Inspirational Book Quote segment - Kevin MacLeod – Wholesome – purchased lifetime extended license. License ID: FML-170359-11970
Music bed for Right Book, Wrong Occasion segment - Kevin MacLeod - Bummin on Tremelo – purchased lifetime extended license. License ID: FML-170359-11969

TTS attribution

Some of our features make use of text-to-speech (TTS).

The AI Text-to-Speech (TTS) voices we use are created by The European Language Grid and the sound file recordings generated and created using: http://mary.dfki.de:59125/ which allows for commercial use under an LGPL license and uses TTS voices provided by European Language Grid (https://live.european-language-grid.eu/catalogue/tool-service/4836, https://live.european-language-grid.eu/catalogue/tool-service/4837, and https://live.european-language-grid.eu/catalogue/tool-service/4838, ) which are provided under a GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 for commercial use with a Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives 3.0 Unported license.

Audiograms

We use Jupitrr to create custom audiograms for our podcast episode.

Sound effects

The sound effects used on this podcast are sourced from:

Pond 5 (all sound effects are paid for and licensed for royalty-free commercial use)
Sonic Foundry Loops for Acid (all sound effects are paid for and licensed for royalty-free commercial use)
Sound effects provided by Rode on the Rodecaster Pro console.
Original content created in-house by us.

What equipment and services do we use to produce our podcast?

The School Reading List uses Buzzsprout to host all our podcast episodes.
We use a RodeCaster Pro mixing and production desk.
We use Acid Pro software by Magix to create jingles, adverts, and promos; and to mix and master our podcast.
We use Pond5 for commercially licensed, royalty-free sound effects.
We use a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 for off-site recording.
We use Rode PodMics for presenters and guests.
We use Rode PSA1+ boom arms.
We use beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO headphones for presenters and guests.
We use Zoom H1n Portable Recorders for outdoor and soundscape recording.
We use Audacity and Auphonic for loudness normalization and file converting.

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Yes. Click the following link to leave us a free voice note message via Speak Pipe; or click the following link to leave us a voicemail via Skype, if you would like to ask a question for one of our listener’s message slots, leave a shout-out or be featured in a future episode.

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This page was last updated on May 29th, 2026.

About Tom Tolkien

Tom Tolkien is a highly qualified (BA Hons, PGCE, QTS) children's literature expert and teacher with over 25 years of experience. He has led inset courses, developed curriculum materials, spoken at conferences, advised on longlisting for several international children's literature literature awards and written for educational publishers including contributing to a BETT award-nominated app. Social profiles: X | Linkedin