Young Ben Franklin

Once again, GZM produces the best fiction podcasts. I’ve listened to all of the middle grade GZM shows, and like the others, this one does not disappoint. The exploits of young Ben are fun and entertaining. The score is fantastic —it evokes sweeping adventures such as Pirates of Caribbean films. As always, the cast is great, and I love how GZM always quickly and quietly addresses the voice changes of the male actors. My favorite part of S1 was the comments at the end of each episode by adult Ben, especially when there was an interruption by Chris/Dave(?) to tell Ben what he couldn’t say. S2 is equally charming and fun and I love that Veracity Quince was used in S2 too. Please do a rewind of both seasons. I MUST be a guest! In short, GZM IS THE BEST.

I loved listening to this podcast with my 10-year old daughter. We were hooked right away. It made riding around in my car a bonding experience. Thank you Gen-Z Media. Can’t wait for Season 3.

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?)