It’s not often a podcast opens with the smashing of a piñata, particularly one that spills out seaweed, pandas and a brain, but Wow in the World (NPR/iTunes) is not your average listen. The first children’s offering from NPR, home to captivating regulars such as Invisibilia, All Things Considered and Code Switch, is a whole lot of fact-based fun. Although it is aimed at primary school-aged kids, there’s much for parents to enjoy, too.
This is a podcast with pedigree. Hipster kids’ musicians the Pop Ups provide the theme; this Brooklyn duo are masters of making songs catchy enough for kids that will also please adult ears. Guy Raz (TED Radio Hour, How I Built This) and Mindy Thomas (Sirius XM) host and are full of wonder, clearly enjoying being this more exaggerated version of themselves.
Thomas takes the role of cartoonish questioner as Raz explains the search for another planet, how gratitude makes people fitter and why seaweed makes you clever. “If we know planet nine is out there and it’s so big, why can’t we see it?” quick-fires Thomas. “How come our brains have so many more neurons in the cerebral cortex than other creatures?” “So a species is a group of living things that are basically alike, right?” Endearingly, she addresses him as “Guyraz” as if it’s all one word. Everyone should do that from now on.
Raz is the consummate straight man: patient, warm and full of facts that are just right for kids to understand. “If you lived on planet nine, you’d only be able to celebrate your birthday every 20,000 years,” he notes.
Many questions are covered in the first episode: where do we come from? Why are humans’ heads so big? Why is eating healthy food good for your brain? In a world where children and adults sometimes succumb to the lure of staring at a screen rather than talking, Wow in the World is one way to start a conversation. But, in typical NPR style, it does that without being worthy, giving a half-hour dose of science, technology and inexhaustible energy.
If you like this, try this… The Infinite Monkey Cage
