There is no denying that children are avid lovers of stories. Whether it’s through reading or listening to them, stories delight kids in great measure.

If your reader kids are fond of books, chances are that they want to read stories during the day or listen to them at night. Beyond helping to boost memory, reading is an effective way for improving children’s creative abilities.

As much as you want to cultivate reading habits in your kids, it becomes necessary that you source a good deal of books for them. But again, you may want to save yourself the rigour of visiting bookshops week in, week out, in order to pick a couple of books for your kids.

Verily, online books happen to be your best bet for bypassing the rigour of sourcing hand-held children’s books. Perhaps, you’ve made up your mind to consider online books in place of hand-held books but what happens if you can’t just afford buying such books for your kids?

Well, there are dozens of websites that offer free online books specifically targeted at child readers. To aid your search for such websites, here’s a list of the top 10 websites with free online books for kids in 2023

1.Storyline Online

Storyline Online is managed by The Screen Actors Guild Foundation and it boasts a wealth of free online books for kids’ academic development. If you really crave the best for your kids, you’ll likely prioritize Storyline Online probably for its collection of books authored by authoritative educators.

The website is such a great and easy-to-use resource courtesy of its layout and pretty organization of books. Interestingly, there are animations for the books and each animation provides essential details (such as the author, plot summary, publisher, recommended grade level and run time) of the corresponding book.

While the books on Storyline Online are great for enhancing your kids’ comprehension, written and verbal abilities, it’s quite exciting that the site features notable actors including James Earl Jones, Betty White and Kevin Costner.

Visit storyline here

2.Open Library

This is another great resource for free online books that will aid children’s academic development. Open Library is an offshoot of Internet Archive –a non-profit resource.

Frankly, Open Library is a site best recommended to parents looking to access an astronomical amount of free kids-centered books. The site boasts well over 20,000 free online books, including old and recent titles, all suitable for kids. This, coupled with the fact that Open Library holds over 1 million books, is enough reason to incorporate the website into your kids’ digital library.

Open Library stands out from several other websites with free online books for kids. While there are several reasons for the latter statement, one great reason is the website’s regular update of its database. This way, users of the website readily see updated links to online books well suited for children.

Visit open library today to create a free account here

3.Barnes & Noble Free Nook Books for Kids

This is a lovely website with a dedicated section for kids-centred books. One of the great features of the site is that its books have been well categorized such that users can easily locate them on the basis of user ratings, bestseller, title, new or old.

If you’re an avid follower of Disney, you’re very likely to admire Barnes and Noble for its featuring of Peppa Pig, Dr. Seuss, Dork Diaries, Anna and several other Disney characters loved by kids. Prettily, you’ll find the listed characters and others in the Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader.

The e-book reader is specifically a free-to-use resource for downloading online books targeted at kids in the age bracket of 0-12 years.

4.Oxford Owl

Oxford Owl is a resourceful tool developed by Oxford University Press with the aim of promoting kids’ capabilities for learning while at school or home. The website is generously equipped with the free online books that children at tender ages need for tremendous academic development.

If your kids love reading or you’re willing to enhance their reading culture, you can expect to make success with Oxford Owl. Particularly, the website gives kids access to an array of guides, games and storytelling videos, all of which promote their reading abilities.

Oxford Owl avails you exposure to over 250 kids-centred ebooks that you can access freely after registering with the website.

5. Mrs. P’s Magic Library

This site is a brainchild of Kathy Kinney and her colleagues. Courtesy of its founders’ admiration for kids-centered storytelling, Mrs. P’s Magic Library happens to have inspired a whole lot of children to read.

It’s very possible that you know Kathy Kinney only as a comedienne cum actress but in actuality, she plays other roles as a children lover and storyteller. Prettily, Kinney takes advantage of her skills to immerse kids in the adventurous pleasure aroused by storytelling.

Through her website (Mrs. P’s Magic Library), Kinney happens to have created a storytelling scene wherein she features as a granny (named Mrs. P) reading classic storybooks. It’s fascinating that Kinney created this website with the motive of arousing children’s desire to listen to timeless stories. So, lovely it is that children listening to Kinney’s (Mrs. P’s) online classic stories get so engrossed that they develop lasting affection for reading books.

6.Amazon’s Free Kids Ebooks

You, probably, are well conversant with Amazon as a leading online marketplace for buying various items.

Well, Amazon isn’t only an online platform for buying but also, it boasts a lovely repository for free online kids’ books. Precisely, there’s Children’s eBooks which is an Amazon section for free kids-centred books. You’ll find a decent number of free-to-access eBooks (about 100 books) under each of the section’s subcategories: Sports & Outdoors, Early Learning, Animals, Action & Adventure.

Chances are that you’ll find a decent number of befitting eBooks for your kids as Amazon’s Children eBooks houses over 3,000 kids-centered eBooks filed under various subcategories.

7.International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL)

This website lives up to its name as a non-profit establishment that guarantees access to a broad range of children’s books. ICDL holds a huge collection of book titles (4,000 titles) which cut across multiple cultures and varying languages.

The website is easy to use, thanks to its user-oriented search interface which lets you sort desired book titles by genres, book length, reading level and age. ICDL further lets you create a free user account so that you have a private bookshelf for your kids. Using the account, you can save the books you’d like to read to your kids and even set priorities on the books.

If you’re a culture-oriented person and would appreciate that your kids learn your culture and the cultures of others, you can expect to make great success with ICDL. The website’s homepage holds featured titles from which you can select a couple of free online books to read. You should take your time to generously read the selected books to your kids.

8.Gateway to the Classics

If you want your children to have a decent knowledge of history or develop a flair for literature, Gateway to the Classics could be the befitting website for them.

This website, which previously went by the name Baldwin Online Children’s Literature Project, boasts over 2,500 poems. Moreover, users of the website can enjoy access to a whole lot of children’s books.

If listening to pretty stories will better keep your kids engaged, you can rest assured that Gateway to the Classics is a great choice for the audio files of written stories. The site does have audio files for some of the children’s books on it.

9.Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a website with an imposing collection of classics well suited for kids. If you’d like your kids to read classics such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Project Gutenberg is certainly the go-to site for you.

On Project Gutenberg, there are lots of free kids-centered books that you can download in Kindle format or set in HTML for your kids to read. Also, the books on the website have been filed by their authors’ names alphabetically, making it easy for users to locate them.

You’ll find a good deal of kids-centered books on Project Gutenberg and the book titles come under varying subcategories including School Stories, Children’s Picture Books and Children’s History.

10.Magic Keys

This site is certainly one of the lovely online resources for kids-centered books which you can access freely. One exciting thing about Magic Keys is the availability of audio versions for many of its children’s eBooks.

Frankly, Magic Keys is one of the websites you can bank on if you really want your kids to have adventurous stories they can read as well as listen to. Structurally, the children’s books on Magic Keys are filed under three categories: young adults, older children and young children.

If you ever think all Magic Keys offers is books, you really have to think again because there are dozens of quizzes and riddles that both kids and adults can attempt on the site.

Conclusion

Many kids love adventurous stories probably when they’re made to read or listen to such stories. If you’re always willing to give your kids the best, nothing should stop you from trying any of the websites discussed so far.