Free Children's Books Online

Introduction

This is a listing of sites that legally offer free books, for reading and listening (audio), for children.

All of these sites listed have content that is legal for them to distribute.  If you find that any site listed is offering content that can not be legally transferred, please let me know in the comments below. 

Also, I would appreciate it if you would post comments about any sites that you like or do not like so that information can be added to the site's listing here.  This would help new users to decide which sites to try.

This list is not comprehensive and if you know of any other sites please post in the comments below or at our forums. 

A comprehensive alphabetical listing of free books for reading or listening can be found on these pages:

• 100+ Places For Free Books Online

• Free Audio Books Online

Libraries are also an excellent source for reading and listening materials for children.  To find out more information on your local library, the links here may help:  Library Information

There are 13 other book genre  pages here at Gizmo's covering other various popular book genres and offering links to free online books listed here:  Book Genre Pages

Children's Books Series

Someone asked in the comments here about books in the Peter Pan series and I thought that it would be a good idea to gather together the various locations for the books in a children's series.  Since I did not want to take up further web pages here at Gizmo's, I set up a site at Google Sites to provide the links for these books.  As of now, I have listed only one series, but if there is interest I will post up more.  Please let me know in the comments below (or at the Google site) if you are interested.

• The Oz Series  Most people think there is only the one book (Wizard of Oz), but there are 40 "official" books in the Oz series and several more "unofficial" Oz books.  The official series started in 1900 and continued until 1963.  I have located copies of the first 38 of the 40 official Oz books and have provided links to them.  I have also located a few of the unofficial Oz works and will be posting up those links soon.  This was one of my favorites as a child and I hope you enjoy them also.

Children's Books for Reading

2020ok around 100 books for babies through 12 nicely divided into categories. (Also a teen section at site)

Archive.org (Children's Library) large collection of children's books available for online viewing (original books) and download

BABBooks has 25 free illustrated books available for online reading or listening.

Baldwin Online Children's Projects 520 classic  children's books in a variety of genres for online viewing.

BBCSchools has three online illustrated books for young children that can be viewed with or without audio.

BetweentheLions has a good number of video books with words for younger readers to follow along.  Also some games and other activities for young readers.

BhuddaNet offers about 15 Buddhist books for children as well as textbooks and coloring books for download in pdf.

BookBox has about 20 free books available for download in pdf (as a single page) and MP3.  Also free games and coloring books.

BookPop has a number of illustrated books free for online reading.  There are also some coloring pages for download.  There are supposed to be music and story downloads, but I kept getting an error when  trying to reach those.

BooksShouldBeFree has a good size collection of Childrens and Fairy Tales books available for download in plain text format.

Bored.com (Children's) has 1572 works available for online viewing in their children's section.  Searchable by author name and title.

Browzer offers a few unique books for download in pdf without registration. 

CandlelightStories has a good number of stories from the Arabian nights collection as well as other story books available for online reading.

CBeebies is a BBC site that offers a good number of free stories, in flash, for online reading and listening.  Also, has games, music and coloring books.

ChildrensBooksForever has a nice collection of illustrated books available in pdf.

Children's Books Online is an excellent collection (600+) of illustrated antique children's books for viewing online.   They are also available for download at a fee.  This little gem was suggested by an anonymous poster.

Children'sLibrary.org has a large collection of books for online viewing.  Many appear to be unique classic works that are finely illustrated.  Books can be filtered by age, length and fiction/non-fiction.

Classic Literature Library (Fairy Tales) Small collection, but a nice collection of the Oz and Peter Pan books along with Lewis Carroll's children's books available for online viewing

ClassicReader (Young Readers) Several hundred classic books for young readers available for online viewing

e-booksDirectory has some classic children's books available for online viewing and some for download.  Some are the usual classics, but also some unusual entries here.

eBooksforYoungReaders offers a large collection of free books for download nicely categorized into reading levels.

Feedbooks (Young Readers) a nice collection of books (100) for the older children available in a large variety of downloads

Fiction eBooks (Children's Illustrated) 8 of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books very nicely illustrated

FreeOnlineBooks has a good number of childrens novels available for viewing online.  Some unique entries here.

GoldenGems   a collection of little golden books and other illustrated books for children for online viewing and saving as jpg.

Google Book Search (Fairy Tales) 496 works for online viewing, from the 1850s-1920s

Gutenberg (Children's) Large collection divided into sub-categories available for download in several formats

HeyGidday (Children's) nice size collection of classic children's books for download as pdf (zipped)

International Children's Digital Library nice collection of children's books from around the world in a variety of languages and nicely categorized, available for online viewing

Jody Kihara has made two of her books for children available for free download in PDF and apparently more freebies are forthcoming.

Kellscraft (Children's Books) nice collection (100) of childrens books from the 1890s-1920s.

KiddoTime is a site for those learning to read.  It has phonics, word, music and puzzle games.  Suggested by Sefi.

KidsNurseryRhymes a British site featuring over 1200 nursery rhymes for online viewing.  Also has sing along rhymes (must have midi player-available there) and some nursery rhyme disco recordings available for download in MP3.

Kidspace A small collection of childrens books, available for online viewing, from the Internet Public Library.

LearningIsland Nice collection of children's books available for online viewing.

LibraryofCongress maintains a nice collection of classic children's books in its Childrens Literature collection of its Rare Book section.  these are available for online reading and download in pdf.  These are illustrated copies and are a nice mix of well known and unusual.

LilFingers Storybooks Small collection of books for very young children for reading and being read to.

Magickeys small, but interesting and unusual, collection for online viewing

ManyBooks (Young Readers)  1678 books available for online viewing or download in an extremely large variety of formats

MemoWare (Children's eBooks) 678 books available for download in varying formats

Munsey's (Children Books) 1872 books available in HTML or a good variety of downloads

Qvadis (Children's) 418 works available for download in Doc format

PBSKids has a few read along stories as well as several short educational videos for young children.

RIF Reading Planet  has an interesting collection of books for online viewing that changes monthly.  Also has activities and games as well as Asian/Pacific, Caribbean, Hispanic and native American sections with books and activities.

Scholastic Small collection of children's books available for online viewing (or read to you).  Featuring Clifford the Big Red Dog.

SebastianSwan  a collection of Sebastian Swan stories for online viewing.

SillyBooks has a number of free books available for online reading.  There are also puzzles, games and contests.

Starfall  has online flash presentations designed for first graders to entertain and educate.

StoryPlace Elementary has six stories and related activities for online viewing geared for elementary school age children.

StoryPlace PreSchool  has a nice collection of books and activities designed for pre-schoolers available for online viewing.

Tikiri  has a nice collection of Sri Lankan stories available in English and Sinhalese available as pdf.

ToddlerSchool has a small collection of illustrated books to read and listen to online. Also has educational games for younger children.  Suggested by Sefi.

WebPop has a very interesting collection of unique and nicely illustrated books available for online reading, listening and download. 

WiredForBooks has a nice collection of Beatrix Potter books as well as a few others for online reading and also available in audio.

WorldofTales  a collection of folktales, fairy tales and fables from around the world available for online viewing.

Wowio (Children's) large collection with sub-categories for different age groups for free online viewing

Children's Audio Books

AudioBooksForFree (Childrens) has a few hundred audio books available for free download as MP3s.  However, the quality of the free downloads is 8kbps, which is bearable.  Higher quality recordings cost money.  No sorting for age groups.  The books appear to be mostly for older children.

BooksShouldBeFree has a good collection of Childrens and Fairy Tales audio books available for download in MP3 (64kbps) format.  Files are downloaded in Zip format and when extracted are separated into chapters.

CinnamonBear is a British site featuring the adventures of Paddy O'Cinnamon available for download in MP3 format.  The quality is very good, but the stories are divided into separate downloads of small sections.  A nice unusual listing though.

FreeBooks.org has 137 audio books (computer voice) available for download in MP3 format.  The books can also be listened to and read online.

HighlightsKids has 9 books available for listening and viewing online through a flash player.  The site also has games, puzzles, reading stories and science experiments and stories for children.

KidsAudioBooks Very good site which lists many of the same records listed at KiddieRecordsWeekly, but has them all available in one download.  Also has some old time radio shows as well as a small collection of coloring pages (images to be saved) and reading books (pdf download).

KidsLearnOutLoud has about 160 free audio books and podcasts available for listening or download in various formats (usually MP3).  These are links to other sites so the format and quality can vary, but the few I listened to were of very good quality.  Some interesting entries here. 

KidsNurseryRhymes has singalong nursery rhymes for online listening and disco sing alongs for download in MP3 format.

KiddieRecordsWeekly has a very interesting collection of stories.  These were recorded on records during the mid 1940s to the early 1950s.  Many of these recordings were extravagant Hollywood productions on major record labels and featured big time celebrities and composers of the day.  There are around 250 recordings available for download in high quality MP3 format or they can be streamed.  Some are available as one download, but most are available in several segments. (See KidsAudioBooks for easier download).

Librivox (Childrens) has a good collection of childrens audio books available for download in MP3 (64kbps or 128kbps) or ogg.  Quality of recordings is very good, but the downloads are chapter by chapter.

LightUpYourBrain has 14 childrens audio books available for download in MP3 or for listening online.  All are read by Chuck Brown.  There is also a large collection of childrens games available at the site.

Lit2Go has a large collection of audio books and poems, which appear to be almost all for children of varying ages (Titles).    Quality of recordings was very good.

Robert Munsch has about 60 books by Robert Munsch (and read by him) available for download in MP3 format. 

Speakaboos has about 100 books available for listening and viewing online through a flash viewer.  Downloads are available for a fee, though some are available free after registering.  They also have a Play area with arts and crafts projects.

StoryLineOnline has audio books available for online listening and viewing through a flash player.  There are also activities associated with the book available online or for download in pdf.  This site is a program of the Screen Actors Guild and features well known actors as the readers.

Storynory has a good size collection of interesting children stories.  There are original stories as well as classic novels and fairy tales.  The educational page has Greek myths and Robin Hood stories and some others.  The Junior stories page has books for those just learning to read.  Downloads are very good quality MP3. 

WiredForBooks has a nice collection of Beatrix Potter books as well as a few others for online reading and also available in audio.

 WorldofTales  a collection of folktales, fairy tales and fables from around the world available as audio.