"Sparkle Car #8: The Magic of Backroads" from the Sparkle Car collection
Sparkle Stories Podcast
Lisabeth Sewell
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2025
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week's featured story comes from the Sparkle Car collection.
It's called "Sparkle Car #8: The Magic of Backroads."
This episode of Sparkle Car features a story from our "By Thistle By Thimble" story series: "The Glove Box" Gregory and his grandmother both share a deep interest in things from 'times gone by'. He spends long hours sorting through boxes in her attic, bins in her basement, and drawers in her garage; and she loves telling him stories about the curious tools and toys and objects that he finds. But there is one place he's not allowed to dig: the glove box in her car. She always tells him: "It is not for you Gregory - at least not yet." Many years later, Gregory gets to discover the magic that was kept inside - a magic that could show him something very dear to both him and his grandmother.
Also included is the German folktale "The Water of Life", about the wanderings of the youngest son of an ailing man. The boy is able to find what his brothers could not, due to his generosity and kindness to a strange man he meets on a back road on the way to the palace.
If you enjoyed that story, there are hundreds and hundreds more where that came from. Try a Sparkle subscription now - for free. Go to www.sparklestories.com and click the button at the top that says “Start Free Trial,” then you can listen to our giant library as much as you like, anytime you like.
Each week on the Sparkle Stories Podcast, we share a free story from one of our original story series!
For many many many more stories like this one, visit the Sparkle website:
www.sparklestories.com
Questions? Ideas? Requests?
Email us! info@sparklestories.com
Enjoy!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello Sparkle Friends. It's Elizabeth of Sparkle Stories. Welcome to the Sparkle Stories podcast. Today I am |
| 0:15.0 | featuring another popular story. It comes from a collection that I rarely feature. The collection is called Sparkle Car, and all of the episodes in Sparkle Car are built for |
| 0:26.1 | car rides. |
| 0:26.9 | They're often quite long, and they often contain multiple stories. |
| 0:31.5 | This one is Sparkle Car number eight, the magic of back roads, and it has two separate stories in it. It's almost an |
| 0:40.4 | hour long, so get ready for some listening. The first story is a by-thistle-by-thimble story called |
| 0:47.4 | the glove box, which has a relationship between a boy and his grandmother and a little bit of magic |
| 0:53.9 | hidden in the glove |
| 0:55.1 | box of a car. The second story is a German folktale called the Water of Life. So make sure |
| 1:03.9 | you have an hour for some delicious Sparkle Stories listening. Okay, before I share this episode, Sparkle Car number eight, I want to encourage |
| 1:15.7 | you to subscribe. If you're not yet a subscriber or you've taken a break, come on back. We would love |
| 1:23.8 | to have you. Just go to SparkleStories.com and click the button at the top right that says |
| 1:28.9 | start free trial. And you can listen to our entire library of over 1,500 stories. As often as you like, |
| 1:36.8 | as much as you'd like, it's all there for you. Sparklstories.com and click the button at the top |
| 1:42.8 | rate that says start free trial. |
| 1:46.8 | Okay, now here is Sparkle Car number eight, The Magic of Backroads. |
| 1:53.1 | Enjoy. |
| 1:53.4 | Enjoy. The Glove Box |
| 2:10.6 | Cars are very personal things. |
| 2:17.0 | Everyone's car is unique, and everyone treats their car in their own way. |
| 2:22.3 | Some people have very fancy cars with special seat covers and expensive radios. Some people fill their |
| 2:30.6 | cars with tools or boxes of supplies or toys or sports equipment. |
... |
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