School libraries are closed, and some parents might feel it’s not safe yet to take the kids to a bookstore. So it can be a real challenge to keep up with the kids’ reading habits, especially when they are avid readers and ask for more books to read. Fortunately, there are some great sites with good quality, free online children’s books. Children can read them online or download to read on a computer, tablet or kindle.
International Children’s Digital Library
ICDL is a nonprofit organisation that provides access to books for children from all around the world in more than 50 languages. You can read more here about them. Their website is easy to navigate, and you can search books by age, book length, genres, or reading level.
You don’t need to have an account to read the books. If you choose to subscribe for free though, you will be able to create a bookshelf to save your kids’ favourite books. You could also bookmark books you’d like to read later. Start your reading journey here.
Open Library for online children’s books
This site has the biggest free online library with a massive book collection that includes over 22,000 free online books for kids. After creating an account, you can choose the book you want to borrow and download it in the format of your preference. The only downside is that sometimes there’s a waiting list for popular books. Like in a physical library, there’s a limit of books you can borrow at a time.
Children’s Books Online
Also called The Rosetta Project, this website has one of the largest collections of illustrated antique online books in different languages. The books are classified by reading levels, and there’s also a category for books with audio.
Amazon, Barnes and Noble
Amazon and Barnes and Noble also offers a wide range of online children’s books free to download. Just type ‘free children eBooks’ on the home page and take a browse.
Besides the websites mentioned above, there are others, such as Magic Blox and Oxford Owl, where kids can simply read English language online books, without having to download the books.
With all those options our kids will be happy, busy and keep their digital bookshelves well-stocked!
