Well, you can!
Fortunately, there are tons of companies, apps and websites that offer free books for kids.
Both digital and physical copies are available too!
Now, I’m not just talking about getting free books from your local library, which actually is a great idea.
Local libraries can be limited though.
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Below, we’ve outlined some of the best places where you can get your hands on 100s and 1000s of free books for children in almost any genre imaginable.
Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Free Kids Books/eBooks to Download or Read Online
First, we’re going to start with places that offer free digital copies of books, rather than physical ones.
You’ll find that there are far more companies and websites that allow you to download free digital copies, compared to mailing physical ones.
This is likely because the cost of mailing books is much more than simply offering a download copy.
What’s great about eBooks is that you can download and read them on pretty much any device – you don’t need to have a Kindle device.
Many of them you can simply view in your browser, and for the ones that you need an e-reader for, you can simply download an e-reader to your computer, phone or laptop.
So, don’t worry; you don’t have to spend money buying a device like a Kindle if you don’t want to.
Check out these places.
1. Amazon
Amazon is a great place to find free children’s books. That’s because tons of Kindle books are available there for free.
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Amazon splits its Bestsellers list into two sections:
- Top 100 Paid
- and Top 100 Free.
Just click on Top 100 Free in the bestselling children’s book section and you can view tons of titles.
You can get these books sent straight to your Kindle device or computer for free!
Amazon is definitely one of the best places to find books for children that don’t cost you a penny.
How to find free Kindle books for kids
Another way to find free titles on Amazon is to use a website that catalogs them, like eReaderIQ.
eReaderIQ
This website lists a range of cute books from Amazon that are totally free. You can see what’s available by visiting the children’s book section that we linked to above.
This website categorizes them, so you can easily view what’s available.
There are a few other websites out there that list free Kindle books – sort of like a freebie website for books!
Some of these websites even send you details of free Kindle books via email.
Here are a few more that work in a similar way to eReaderIQ:
Obviously, the freebies listed on these websites sometimes expire. So, a book that eReaderIQ or FreeBooksy lists as free at the time of writing may not be free when you come to download it. So, always check that the Kindle price reads “$0.00” before you hit the purchase button.
2. Goodreads
One of the best places to look for free books for kids online is at Goodreads.
The website features a list of more than 200 free books.
And, what’s great about it is the selection it offers. You can find some really well-known, high quality titles on there.
In the list, you’ll find plenty of classics and popular, well-loved children’s books, like:
- Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
- James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
- Beauty and the Beast, by Walt Disney Company
- The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
So, it’s definitely a good place to get your hands on some beloved children’s books.
3. FreeChildrenStories.com
A good source for free and original kid’s stories is FreeChildrenStories.com.
On this website, you can find stories for a wide range of age groups, from 3 to 5 to 8 to 10.
The stories have wonderful illustrations too, and the platform is very easy to navigate.
4. FreeKidsBooks.org
This website features children’s books that you can download, without having to pay a cent.
You can get PDF versions or read titles online.
Books are available for a range of age groups from toddlers to young adults.
5. Magic Keys
Magic Keys is a website that features content from puzzles to cartoons that help children to learn how to read and write.
The website has a section called Children’s Story Books Online, which features tons of free books for kids.
You can find titles for young children and older children as well as young adult fiction.
Just click on the one you want and you can read it right from your computer or any other device that you can connect to the internet with.
6. NetGalley
With NetGalley, authors can give readers pre-release copies of their books.
This is another good place to get free digital kid’s books.
The website features two sections:
where you can find free books.
In order to receive a free book from NetGalley, you have to provide a review in return.
7. Read.gov
Another place to find free books for kids is at Read.gov.
This is a government website from the Library of Congress that focuses on promoting literature and reading.
On the website, you can read plenty of classic children’s books for free online.
You don’t need a fancy e-reader or anything like that. Just click on the book you want, and you’ll be able to read it online.
This is a good website if you’re looking for classic titles, like “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain and “Cinderella.”
8. Story Cartel
With story cartel, you can get free books in exchange for your review.
They offer books in a variety of genres and for a wide range of age groups, including children’s and young adult fiction.
In exchange for a free book, you just need to post a review on a site like Amazon, Goodreads or Barnes & Noble.
If you haven’t already got an account on one of those websites, then you should definitely consider creating one – otherwise, you’ll miss out on opportunities to get books for nothing.
9. Lola’s Book Tours
Lola’s Book Tour is a website that provides promotional services to authors.
Essentially it helps authors to get their work out in front of a wider audience.
The company offers review opportunities to readers.
You get a review copy for free, and then all you need to do is post a review of the book on your Amazon or Goodreads account.
You can visit the website to see current review opportunities. Sometimes there are review copies of middle-grade books and young adult fiction.
10. Enchanted Book Promotions
Enchanted Book Promotions is another company that provides promotional services to authors.
One service that the company offers is book reviews, and it requires readers to write these reviews.
In exchange for a review, you can get books for free.
Like many companies that promote author’s works, Enchanted Book Promotions has books available for a wide range of age groups, including children.
You can find a number of children’s books on there, and if you’re willing to post a review on a website like Amazon or Goodreads, then you can get them without having to part with any cash.
11. OverDrive
Using OverDrive, you can borrow books from libraries in your area without paying anything, as you can with a regular library. But, that’s not all.
It also has a useful app called Libby (read our Libby review/guide here) which you can use to get free Kindle books.
There’s a catalog of more than 2 million eBooks, audiobooks and videos available.
The app is available for both phones and tablets.
12. Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is an excellent website for kid’s books.
It features more than 56,000 free eBooks!
And it has a whole category dedicated to children’s books.
In this category, you can find a wide range of sections, like Children’s Fiction, School Stories and Children’s Myths and Fairy Tales.
13. ManyBooks.net
ManyBooks.net is a website that offers thousands of eBooks.
Handily enough, the website offers books in a huge range of formats, like EPUB, PDF and .doc, so you can read books on pretty much any device from your computer to your Kindle.
The website has books available for all ages – including children. Browse through the children’s books section that we’ve linked to above to see what’s available.
14. Children’s Books Online: The Rosetta Project
Children’s Books Online is a really interesting website.
It offers a huge range of illustrated antique books.
And, it has books available for all reading levels, so it’s a great place to find children’s books.
Just select the title that you want and then your child can read it online.
15. Bibliomania
Bibliomania is a website that features more than 800 texts of classic literature, drama and poetry, as well as study guides.
The website, which offers both non-fiction and fiction titles, has a few children’s books available in the fiction section.
A few examples include Peter Pan, Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist, The Jungle Book and Alice in Wonderland.
16. DigiLibraries.com
DigiLibraries.com is an eBook library. It offers books that you don’t have to pay for in a huge range of categories, and it has a section for children’s books called, “Juvenile Fiction.”
It has a section for non-fiction kid’s books called “Juvenile Non-Fiction.”
In the fiction section, you’ll find a plethora of well-known titles, like The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Peter Pan, and The Wind in the Willows.
Interestingly, this website offers quite a few different file formats, like EPUB, PDF and Mobi. So, you can download books in the format that suits your device.
17. International Children’s Digital Library
The ICDL is a research project funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Museum and Library Services and Microsoft Research.
The aim of the project, which was introduced at a celebration at the Library of Congress in 2002, is to create a digital library of children’s books from all over the world.
At the end of the first research period, the site aims to have more than 10,000 materials available, in at least 100 different languages.
You can browse books by age category and also by genre.
The website is a little tricky to navigate – it has a pretty busy user interface. But, you can search for books there as well.
And, you can read them online. You don’t have to download anything or have a certain device to be able to read the books on there.
18. BookBub
Another good place to find children’s books that won’t cost you a penny is at BookBub.
This website offers a great selection of books for a huge range of platforms and devices, like Kindle, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google and Kobo.
Many of the books on the website aren’t free – although they are low cost.
However, there are quite a few free books available in the children’s eBooks section and the middle-grade eBooks section as well.
Just look at the price next to each title, and choose the ones that say “Free” next to them.
There are some really cute books available on there, and the site is really clean and easy to navigate, so it’s easy to find titles.
19. Kids World Fun
At Kids World Fun, you can find a great selection of animated kid’s books that are totally free.
You can either download the books you want, so your child can read them whenever they want, or they can be read online.
This is a great place to find really fun, bright, animated books that your child will love.
20. MagicBlox
This website features a large collection of children’s books.
On there, you’ll find titles for children aged 1 to 13 years old. All of the site’s books can be read from a computer or mobile device.
When you register for an account, your child can read one full book each month for free.
Sure, it’s only one book, but it still could be worth checking out.
21. MeeGenius
Update: It seems like the website is no longer available.
MeeGenius is an online library of children’s books.
On the website, there’s a section for free books for kids, so check that out. There isn’t a huge selection of free titles on there, but it’s still a good place to check out.
Free Kids Books by Mail
Okay, so as you can see there are so many places where you can get digital copies of books for free.
But, what if you prefer a hard copy?
Well, there are a few places that offer those too. Of course, there are not as many places out there that offer physical copies, compared to digital titles, but there are still a few.
Below, we’ve gathered a few of the best places where you can get free children’s books in the mail.
So, check them out.
22. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
A great way to get free kids’ books by mail is through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
With this program, you can have free books mailed to your child from birth, until they begin school.
The program is only available in participating areas.
So make sure you check out the website to see if you can get books for free in the mail where you live.
This is such a good way to get free books in your child’s first years.
23. Read Comingo
Read Comingo is a website that offers free bilingual books for children.
You have to become a member of Read Comingo to get access to the site’s books, but this is free to do.
Once you’ve signed up, you get access to 43 eBooks in the site’s online library. But, in certain cities, you can also get free children’s books delivered to your home.
24. Fresh Fiction
Fresh Fiction is another website that you can get free books from in exchange for a review.
The website features a number of titles that you can review, including books for children.
And, with this site, you can get free physical copies of books sent to your home as well. Digital copies are available too.
All you need to do is create a review and it will be posted on the Fresh Fiction website.
25. LibraryThing
LibraryThing is another website that provides free books for review. You can choose the book you want from a list of review titles.
Sometimes, there are review copies of children’s books available.
And, handily enough, the website offers physical books, as well as eBooks. Just select the “paper only” option next to where it says “media.”
Take a look and see if there are any kid’s titles that you could get for free from the website.
26. PaperBackSwap
A really interesting website where you can find books for children is PaperBackSwap. It’s an online book-swapping community.
On the site, there are over one million books to choose from.
With PaperBackSwap, you have to list a book you want to swap with other members of the site.
Then, once your book is requested, you mail it to the member. In return, you can choose from 1.7 million available books!
You have to pay to ship the book you send out, but the postage for the books you receive is already paid.
You can then keep the books you request or swap them again for another title.
Sure, this isn’t a totally free way to get a book, since you have to pay to post the one you send, but it’s a good way to get rid of old books you no longer want, and refresh your child’s library.
There are lots of books on the site to choose from. There are plenty of books for children available in a variety of different genres on there. And, both paperbacks and hardbacks are available as well.
27. Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Program
If you’re looking for an activity to keep the kids occupied over the summer, then consider having them participate in the Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Program.
To participate you and your child need to:
- Read any eight books this summer and record them in your Summer Reading Journal. You can get this in English or Español. Your child should tell Barnes and Noble which part of the book is their favorite and why.
- Then, bring the completed journal to your nearest Barnes and Noble between May and September.
- Then, your child can choose a free book from the list on the back of the journal.
This program is a great way to get free books and give your child an activity to do over the summer.
More Places to Get Free Children’s Books
It’s been a few years since we originally published this post. As part of our commitment to always providing you, our audience, with the most fresh and up-to-date content, we constantly revisit our older posts to update them with current information.
Here are a few more awesome resources where you can get totally free books for your kids.
28. Storyline Online
This website features famous actors reading popular children’s books. While it doesn’t offer downloadable books, it’s a great resource for children to listen to stories being read aloud.
29. Storynory
Storynory offers free audio stories for kids, including fairy tales, myths, and original stories, available to listen to online or download.30. Oxford Owl: Oxford Owl provides a collection of free eBooks for children ages 3-11. They offer a variety of fiction and non-fiction titles.
30. Open Library
Open Library is an initiative by the Internet Archive, offering over 1.7 million free eBooks, including a good selection of children’s literature.
31. Library Genesis (LibGen)
While primarily known for academic books, LibGen also has a selection of children’s books available for free download.
Happy Reading!
As you can see, there are so many places where you can get free books for kids – you just need to know where to look.
Hopefully, our list has given you a great place to start.
Check out these sites and see if there are any books that you think your child would be interested in reading.
Giving books to your children is a great way to develop their language skills and keep them entertained!
Love free books to read!