Young Ben Franklin - Podcast Rankings and reviews

5th grade son absolutely loves this series. This was our first podcast experience and it set the bar very high for any other podcasts that follow. Extremely impressed with quality. Audiobooks and podcasts of this quality get reluctant readers excited and more willing to read, in order to search for other great stories.

Let me be frank. It wasn’t nearly as good as season one. The characters appeared without any real reason to be there, the plot unfolds like a rumpled blanket, but Danny Quin is a good character so I let it slide.

The Plot: Take season one for example. A well spaced out mystery that introduces a loveable gang of characters within the first few episodes, solving smaller mysteries until linking them into the larger mystery.

Season two… doesn’t do that. Ben goes to New York, and then meets the dirty dogs. Sure, I guess that’s fine. But after that, you meet Hannah. I feel like the amount of times there is an incredibly stressful moment and then they randomly stop to remember her father happens too many times. She’s a great character and I love her story but maybe make that a sub plot and don’t integrate it into the main story by randomly stopping and talking about it.

And then we have the twist villain… Amanda. Now this review is being made by an older child, so I might be out of the age range for this show, but…

Amanda is not a good villain. While I may have not realized she was evil, it was incredibly obvious. And even if you didn’t know she was the bad guy, she wasn’t a very loveable character. She is a stereotypical "I’m a rich daughter of the big guy in charge" kind of person, and nobody really likes that character. The plot twist wasn’t drawn out, and there were no context clues she was evil. She pops up a few times across the show and then suddenly she appears in the final episode for like ten minutes and is all like "yo I’m the bad guy" and then the whole villain thing she is gonna do is shoot Ben. Why wasn’t she the villain for at least two episodes? You could say that Danny was a twist villain, but most people would know that he’s not completely trust worthy.

I appreciate you guys making a season two, but if you make season three or other episodes (take your time), please take this review into consideration

-With thanks, [username]
(I forgot my username)

What I’m saying is I wish that we had the warfrats and that the new voice acted for Ben was kinda sorta REALLY BAD LIKE WHAT THE HECK THE ORIGINAL WAS SO MUCH BETTER! (also if Ben hates rats why’d he nickname them the warfRATS?)

History buffs, readers, and adventure seekers of all ages are sure to enjoy this phenomenal audio drama based on the life (and legend) of a young Benjamin Franklin! Family friendly, imaginative, and roaring fun!

My kids love to listen to audiobooks like Magic Treehouse, Junie B Jones, Narnia Series, Little House Books from the library. We haven’t been to the library in awhile so I found these on Podcast and my kids love this series! And they’re learning while they listen. They’re 14, 12 and 9 and have always been homeschooled and have always loved to listen to stories and can read all day if I let them. If your kiddos are like mine they will love this well told story.