I've got a show to recommend that I genuinely think you and your kids are going to love.
It's called Lightcatchers, a brand new award-winning cinematic audio adventure from the team behind Batman, High Volume and Story Pirates.
If your house is into pinna favorites like Grim Grimmer, Grimmest or Hero Hotel, this is absolutely your next play.
Stick around for a preview at the end of this episode.
Then search Lightcatchers wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, my name is Adam Gidwitz.
I'm an author.
I'm also a storyteller.
I like telling all kinds of stories, but I especially like telling grim fairy tales.
You may think you know grim fairy tales, and you may think that they are sweet and boring.
But listen, those tales you heard were the cute, happy little kid bedtime versions of the grim tales.
The original grim fairy tales aren't like that at all.
They're weird and sometimes gross and often scary.
In other words, they're grim.
And I'm about to walk into a classroom and tell one of the original grim, grim tales to a bunch of kids.
Do you want to join me?
Do you want to hear a grim fairy tale?
Let me help you decide.
On a scale of grim, grimmer, and grimmest, I'd say the story I'm going to tell today is grimmest.
It isn't super scary, but it has some serious suspense and there's a very creepy part where an old dude asks a young girl to marry him, which is not okay.
If I get to a part of the story and you start to feel scared or uncomfortable, this is what you could do.
You could turn down the volume and count to five, then turn the volume back up.
If it still seems like a part you don't want to hear, just turn the volume down and count to five again.
You know how much weird and gross and scary you're ready for.
You know what you need.
Okay, I'm at the classroom door now.
There are kids inside, waiting to hear a grim fairy tale.
So, are you coming in?
Grim, grimmer, grimmest.
That's pretty much what skiing is for me.
All right.
So this is the story you probably do not know so well.
There are definitely creepy parts and weird parts, maybe slightly scary parts, suspenseful parts.
It's just like a weird and epic grim fairy tale.
It's called The Glass Coffin.
Once upon a time, there was an old tailor who spent his days mending people's clothes.
In the tailor's workshop was a young boy who worked as the tailor's apprentice.
One day the tailor sent the boy on an errand through the deep woods.
The woods were very thick and the paths were very twisty, and soon the boy was very lost.
As night fell, the boy decided it would be best to sleep and wait until morning to find his way home.
First the boy made a bed of soft moss, but as soon as he had laid down on it he realized that the wild animals of the forest might eat him while he slept.
So the boy found a tall, sturdy tree and climbed up to a thick branch a good distance from the ground.
Just as he was settling into sleep, he saw a light burning in the distance.
Perhaps it was a campfire, or better yet, a house.
So he climbed back down the tree and followed the light through the thick woods.
At last, the boy came to a small hut with a single door and a single window.
And through the single window, a single light was shining.
You should never go to a little house in the middle of the woods.
This is something that fairy tales teach.
Yeah, like in fairy tales, it's almost always a bad idea.
At nighttime, in the middle of the night.
In the forest, lost.
Agreed.
The hut was surrounded by a small fence, so the boy opened the gate and knocked once loudly on the hut's single door.
After some shuffling and grumbling from inside, the door creaked open, revealing a weird little man with a black beard, no hair on top of his head and big black angry eyes.
Reminds me of Robert Skullskin.
Totally, right?
As soon as he saw the boy who had knocked on his door, the weird little man snapped.
You should always knock three times.
It's more polite.
And then he said, What do you want?
Did you know that it was more polite to knock three times instead of one time?
No.
Me neither.
The boy was taken aback by the weird little man's brusque manner.
But he said I just want a place to sleep, sir.
It's very dark and I'm lost.
The weird little man snarled.
I don't take in vagabonds.
Be gone.
But as the weird little man turned to shut the door, the boy grabbed the end of his nightshirt and begged him.
Please, sir, take pity.
Finally, the weird little man relented.
Fine, fine, fine.
But I don't sleep well, especially once midnight comes.
So you can sleep here in my yard, inside the gate.
The wolves won't get you there.
Probably.
He slammed the door in the boy's face.
Um, I think also, you should never sleep anywhere near a guy that says he has problems sleeping, especially at midnight.
And in a fairy tale.
Yeah, or something like that.
The boy settled down on the ground inside the gate, figuring that it was better than sleeping in a tree.
The boy curled up on the cold ground and was just about to fall asleep when he heard a clock chime midnight inside the little hut.
Moments later, the hut began to shake and rumble like a wild beast had been let loose inside.
That weird little man does have trouble sleeping, said the boy.
At just that moment, the door of the hut crashed open.
An enormous black bull came charging out of the door and through the gate.
It kicked and snorted and bucked furiously.
The boy cowered and hid.
And also, he thought, Wow, he really has trouble sleeping.
For the bull had hair just as black as the man's beard and eyes just as angry and terrible.
Just then, a great stag, big and brown and beautiful, with 20 points on its antlers, came charging out of the forest.
Yes.
What's a stag?
A stag is a male deer.
The bull turned to greet it, and the two huge animals crashed into each other, horn to antler.
The stag and the bull separated and then charged one another again, and again, and again.
The ground shuddered with their hoofbeats and the trees and forest shook each time the two collided.
After this had been going on for some time, the stag caught sight of the boy standing by the little hut.
The bull charged the stag again, but this time the stag nimbly sidestepped the charging bull and came stampeding for the boy instead.
Wait, what, why?
Why?
We don't know.
The stag lowered its antlers like twenty sharp spears.
The boy was too afraid to run.
His whole body trembled as the stag thundered closer and closer.
The boy closed his eyes and then he felt himself swept up off the ground by something that felt like tree branches.
He opened his eyes and found himself being carried in the stag's antlers.
Okay, if you suddenly found yourself carried in the antlers of a stag in the middle of the night, away from a charging bull, what sound would you make?
The bull bellowed and chased after them, but the stag, even carrying the boy, was too fast and nimble among the dense forest, and soon the bull fell so far behind that he could be neither seen nor heard.
The stag galloped for another short while.
Then he trotted down a steep hill, into a ravine.
The tall rock walls loomed on either side of him.
The boy, terrified and breathless, held on to the stag's antlers for dear life.
The stag deposited the boy in front of a stone door that was built into a stone cliff that made up one wall of the ravine.
The boy looked at the door and then at the stag.
The stag motioned at the door with its antlers.
You want me to open the door? asked the boy.
Then he thought, I am talking to a stag.
That is weird.
But it is not the weirdest thing that has happened today.
The stag motioned at the door again, so the boy put his hand on the door.
It did not budge.
He pushed harder.
Still, it did not move.
What do you think he should do to open the door?
Pull.
Pull.
Not three times.
Find a key.
The boy knocked three times, and the stone door swung open.
As it did, the boy heard the thundering hoofbeats and terrible snorting of the bull approaching the ravine.
The stag heard it too, for he turned and faced the way they'd come.
The boy did not want to get caught in the middle of the battle between the stag and the bull, so he slipped through the door and pulled it shut behind him.
He found himself in a room made all of stone.
Along three walls were shelves holding dozens and dozens of glass bottles.
Each bottle was filled with smoke of a different color, slowly swirling and shifting in the glass.
The boy wondered why the stag had brought him to this room and what he was supposed to do now.
He walked to the exact center of the room and turned in a circle looking at all the bottles, wondering what he was to do.
Just as he finished turning in a circle, the stone he was standing on suddenly started to sink.
The boy was so startled he nearly fell over, but he managed to stay upright and the stone sunk into the floor.
The stone and the boy passed through the floor and into another chamber below the first one.
Here, larger glass bottles lay on their sides, like bottles with miniature ships inside.
But instead of ships there were tiny, perfect buildings, barns and stables, barracks and hunting lodges.
In the largest bottle was a fabulous castle, reproduced perfectly, down to a tiny bird's nest hiding under the eaves of the shortest turret.
The boy walked around the room marveling at the buildings and the bottles, until he came to the fourth wall.
I just want to say, when I read this part of the story, I was like, I want to see that room.
That sounds awesome.
You guys feel that way, or you just feel creeped out?
Yeah.
I know.
The boy walked around the room, marveling at the buildings and the bottles, until he came to the fourth wall and found, to his utter shock, a girl about his age trapped inside a glass coffin.
A coffin is a place where you bury dead people.
It's a big, usually wooden box.
It's glass.
She appeared to be dead, but as he looked more closely he could see that a strand of her hair had fallen across her mouth and that it rose and fell slightly.
What does that mean, do you think?
She's breathing.
She's alive.
There seemed to be no latch nor lid to the coffin.
The boy tapped on the glass to see if he could rouse the girl, but she did not stir.
So he knocked three times.
Still, she did not stir.
So what did he do?
How did he open the glass coffin?
He bangs it open.
He bangs it open?
What do you think?
Can I say, like, break it open?
Break it open?
Smash it with a rock?
No.
Nothing?
Sit on it?
Sit on it?
Okay, so he sat on the coffin and it opened.
What?
What?
Really?
Well, I didn't have a way for you to open the coffin, so I like your answer.
Instantly, the girl sat up, panting.
She looked around, her eyes wild.
And then, her gaze settled on the boy.
She suddenly relaxed.
Are you here to free me?
She asked.
If you want to be free, said the boy.
Yes, I do.
So the boy helped the girl climb out of the coffin.
And then the boy tried to ask her all the questions he had in his head at once.
What?
How?
Why?
The girl helped him out.
Why was I sleeping in a glass coffin in a stone room under the earth?
Yes, that.
I'll tell you, said the girl.
And she sat down on the floor and the boy sat beside her and she told him her story.
I am the daughter of a great and wealthy count, she told the boy.
After my parents passed away, my big brother and I lived in the castle together for many years.
We grew closer and stronger, managing the lands and our subjects, and we were as happy as any two orphans could be.
Really, other than missing our parents, we wanted for nothing.
But one day... a strange visitor came calling at our gate.
It was a weird-looking little man with a black bushy beard, a bald dome for his head and terrible black eyes.
He asked for some food and, because it is only right to help those in need, my brother and I invited him in to have dinner with us.
Can I just warn you that this part of the story gets creepy?
At dinner, the weird little man kept staring across the table at my brother and me.
When he'd eaten his fill, we bid the man goodnight and saw him out of the castle.
But just as I was preparing for bed, I heard a strange and beautiful music coming from what felt like very far away.
It was so beautiful that I was drawn out of my room as if by magic.
It felt like I was floating.
I drifted down the stairs to the main gate of the castle.
I don't know if I opened the gate or just drifted through it, but I found myself outside the castle walls, face to face with the weird little man.
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He was grinning at me and playing a strange flute.
Look at this flute, he said.
I made it with my great magic.
I can do many magic things.
He paused.
So, do you want to marry me?
Just say the word and you'll be married to the greatest wizard in all the kingdom.
What do you guys think?
Should she marry him?
No, definitely not.
That's probably how she got into the glass coffin in the first place.
Kids should not marry adults.
Ever.
Especially not weird ones who enchant you with magic.
Also, it's a weird thing.
Just say the word.
Have you heard that phrase before?
Just, like, say the word and this will happen?
Like, what word?
What word do you think she needed to say?
Yes.
Yes?
Or I do?
I mean, it could have been something different, like... Or no.
No, or...
Microphone.
Potatoes.
Banana.
I was thinking it could be Fred.
I was thinking it could be Foo-Padoop.
The girl went home.
Well, I did not want to marry him because he was just creepy and a stranger.
So I refused him.
He became enraged and said, I'll give you one last chance.
Use me again and you'll be sorry.
Still, I refused.
So he broke the flute over his knee.
And the next thing I knew, I was sitting up in bed and it was morning.
I dressed quickly and hurried down the hall to my brother's room to tell him what had happened.
But he wasn't there.
So I went to the breakfast room, but he was not there either.
Wait a minute.
They have a whole room for breakfast?
Yeah, it's a castle.
Um, maybe the castle that they lived in is the castle in that big glass bottle.
Oh, maybe.
Or maybe the little tiny guy turned the brother into that deer and the deer led the boy to the place where the girl was in the coffin, so the boy could free the girl and get him back to the human.
These are fascinating ideas.
I searched the whole castle for him until I found a servant who told me that my brother and the weird little man had gone out hunting very early in the morning and were not home yet.
I had a horse saddled quick as can be and I rode out into the forest terrified that the weird little man would do something terrible and magical to my brother.
I rode and rode and rode, urging the horses to run faster and faster.
But I was too late, for as I entered the forest I was met by the weird little man leading by a rope, a great brown stag with 20 points on his antlers.
Where is my brother?
I demanded.
But the weird little man only laughed.
I ran at him in a rage, but he held out a hand, and suddenly I could not move.
If you marry me now, he said, I will free your brother and you will be my wife for the rest of your life.
Well, would you marry him now?
No.
You would?
Because I don't have a brother, but I love my sister.
Yeah?
I would do it.
That's nice.
I would do it.
You would do it to save your sister?
Yeah, but considering this guy, I really think he's lying.
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
Me too.
I think he's lying.
The weird little man asked again.
Will you marry me?
Just say the word.
Foo-ba-doo.
And your brother is free.
But I could not.
The weird little man was so enraged that he waved his arms, and I watched all my servants fly from the castle and transform mid-air into colored smoke.
He trapped them in glass bottles that he had hidden in his coat.
Then all the buildings on our land began to shrink and shrink, and shrink, until they could fit into glass bottles too, which the man seemed to magically pull from his pockets, though the bottles were far too big for pockets.
Finally, the weird little man tapped me on my forehead and I fell down.
The next thing I remembered, I was in a glass coffin in this room.
From time to time, the weird little man comes and wakes me and asks me if I will marry him.
Just say the word.
He says, But I cannot.
I just cannot.
The boy and the girl sat on the stone floor of the underground room.
Above them, hoofbeats shook the earth.
The boy sighed.
You may have to.
What? said the girl.
Your brother is in trouble.
Come with me.
The boy took the girl's hand and made her stand beside him on the central stone.
He turned them around in a circle, and the stone began to rise.
They found themselves in the upper room with the glass bottles.
The girl cried out, Oh, my friends and subjects!
She moved toward them, but the boy said, Hurry, this way!
And he pushed the stone door open.
In the ravine, in the shadow of the tall stone cliff, the bull and the stag fought and their hoofbeats thundered and their antlers and horns crashed and the stones were trembling, threatening to bring the whole ravine crashing down on top of them.
Their fur coats were soaked with sweat and streaked with blood.
At one moment it seemed certain the stag would win, and the next certain that the bull would gore the stag with its horns and kill him.
What can we do? shouted the girl.
Say the word, said the boy.
But I don't want to marry him.
What if she, like, can't, like, like, she can't pronounce it?
Just boop-a-doop.
Come on, it's not that hard, girl.
Yeah, you want to say it?
One, two, three.
One more time.
One, two, three.
That was perfect.
Trust me, said the boy.
So the girl said, But the terrible battle was too loud.
Neither the stag nor the bull heard her.
So she said it again, louder.
But still the fighting was too loud and terrible.
So she shouted at the top of her lungs.
The bull's ears pricked up and he turned his head and saw the girl standing there.
And it seemed, for an instant, that he smiled.
Which is when the stag drove his antlers deep into the bull's chest, right through his heart.
The bull fell and immediately began to shrivel and shrivel and shrivel until he was just the weird little man again, except that he was dead.
There was a huge explosion behind the boy and the girl and they were thrown to the ground.
Rising up out of the stone cliff behind them was the castle that had been trapped in the bottle.
It rose and rose, shattering the stone around it, rising to its full height.
And all the small buildings that had surrounded it sprouted up too.
And there were sounds of hundreds of glass bottles bursting.
And soon colored smoke drifted around the boy and the girl, reshaping itself into all the people of the manor.
The girl could barely believe her eyes, and then someone tapped her on the shoulder.
She spun.
Her brother stood behind her, tall and strong, wearing a twenty-pointed crown.
The girl threw her arms around him.
Then she introduced him to the boy, the tailor's apprentice.
But he was not a tailor's apprentice for long for the girl invited him to live with her and her brother, an invitation which the boy gladly accepted.
And they all lived happily. ever after.
The end.
Yeah, what was he even on an errand for?
Did he even say what he was supposed to go get?
So it's the end, and then it cuts to the tailor being like, where is that kid?
Geez.
I'll just keep waiting.
Grim Grimmer Grimmest is a Pinna Original Production.
Created and written by me, Adam Gidwitz.
Author of A Tale Dark and Grim.
Produced and edited by Ilana Milner.
Casting and voice direction by Paula Gammon-Wilson.
Sound design and mixing by Beat Street NYC.
Location recording by Jason Gambrell and Evan Viola.
Narrated by me, Adam Gidwitz.
Special thanks to the staff and students at Brooklyn Friends School and Manhattan Country School.
You guys are amazing.
Far away on the high Caribbean seas roams a swashbuckling pigeon-loving, burrito-gobbling pirate who's well a bit different than the other pirates.
Bless my Brussels sprouts.
Introducing the new podcast, Light Catchers, season one, Bob the Bad Pirate.
Bob the Bad Pirate wasn't bad because he liked to hurt people or call other pirates' names like Petunia Pillow Pants.
Bob the Bad Pirate was bad because he just wasn't very good at being a pirate.
Give her me tutors!
Listen now to Lightcatchers, wherever you get your podcasts, and learn more at BeALightcatcher.com.
Light up the lanterns and follow me.
Introducing A is for Alfie, the first picture book from the award-winning Pinna series Quentin and Alfie's ABC Adventures.
Alfie thinks his name is a little weird, but with his babysitter Quentin, he discovers that every letter holds endless possibilities.
From A is for acrobat to E is for electrician.
Written by award-winning author Randy DuBerck and illustrated by Derek Brooks, this heartwarming, diverse read-aloud is perfect for kids three to six, guiding them through letters while helping them love who they are.
Pick up A is for Alfie wherever books are sold and start your ABC adventure on the page.
