Introduction
This is a listing of 234 sites that legally offer free ebooks for children to read.
There is a separate listing of audio books for children at:
- Best Free Audio Books Online For Children. (72 sites)
This page is geared towards younger children. I recently added a page of site listings for
- Free eBooks Online Teen and Young Adults for older 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.
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:
- Best Free eBooks Online (862 sites)
- Best Free Audio Books Online (224 sites)
For a complete listing of the free ebook pages here at Gizmo's, see
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
[Doakio Editor's Note: This article was restored from Gizmo's Freeware archives as a service to the freeware community. Gizmo's Freeware provided high-quality, volunteer freeware reviews for decades. They shut down in July of 2021.]
Children's eBooks 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.
Free Children's eBooks
2020ok around 100 books for babies through 12 nicely divided into categories. Note: Most of the links here are working, but there are a number that lead to BookRags, which are not free anymore. Unfortunately, there is no way of telling where the link goes until you click the link. Since they did fix the issue with archive.org links, hopefully they will fix this. Thanks to Marie99 for pointing this out.
ABC Fast Phonics a completely free site for children to learn to read through phonics. No registration needed.
AaronShephard'sWorldof Stories is a nicely categorized collection of stories from around the world for online reading. The listings give the appropriate age for reading, length of the story and origin.
Aesop's Fables offers 655+ of the Aesop fables for free online reading as well as 127 fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the fable of Jean Fontaine (17 and being added to). There are also a couple of L. Frank Baum stories and Dickens' , A Christmas Carol. Also available are 37 audio versions.
A Europe of Tales has free stories from 5 different European countries available for free reading online in a flash player. There are several stories for each country. Very nice graphics.
AllBooksFree has a very nice collection of ebooks for online viewing and listening. Some are also available for download in PDF. These are unique entries that are not available elsewhere.
Allen Morgan offers quite a few of his stories and novels for children for free reading online without registration.
AlvieTheLittleBrownBurro has seven Alvie stories to read online or download in MP3.
AmazingAdventureSeries offers the children story “June the Prune” for free reading online. The story can also be heard by pressing the audio button at the top of the page.
AmericanFolklore offers many folk stories from USA, Canada and Mexico as well as Native American for online viewing.
American Literature has a nice little collection of free stories for children available for free reading online. These have some nice illustrations.
AndersenFairyTales offers several of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales for free online reading in a flash player. Also available are associated activities.
Animated Tall Tales offers the flash animated story of Paul Bunyan for free reading online.
Antique Books has 20 of the classic Golden Books for free online viewing without registration.
Archive.org (Children's Library) large collection of children's books available for online viewing (original books) and download
ArmenianStoryTeller has a few Armenian stories and poems available for free reading online.
Arthur's Classic Novels 
has a large and impressive collection of free classic ebooks for children sorted by Author. The ones I looked at were either available as EPUB or PDF, but apparently some are MOBI. Very nice if you want to get started on a classic book series.
Author Marketing Club monitors Amazon (USA) for daily free ebook offerings. The amount listed varies from day to day. They do offer genre selection and every daily listing that I saw had Children's books. You do have to go into each daily listing individually.
Author Stand has a good number of free original children books. There are a few books that cost money mixed in to the listing, but the vast majority are available for free download in PDF. Free registration is required and I have received no spam after registering months ago.
BABBooks has 25 free illustrated books available for online reading or listening.
Baby School has a small collection of online flash books for toddlers and young children.
BaldwinLibraryofChildren'sLiterature has almost 6,000 classic , but unique, children's books for free viewing online. the ones I looked at had beautiful illustrations. A caution that some of the works are unacceptable by today's standards due to the view of minorities at that time. Not related to the above as far as I can tell.
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.
Bedtime-Story has a large collection of illustrated books for online viewing. Some are classics and others are unique stories separated into unusual categories.
Ben and Me has a very nice listing of links to free ebooks for children available at Amazon.
Best Children's Books offers 2 original children books and links to a number of free children books.
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.
B For Ball offers books for online viewing geared to preschoolers. These books cover basics such as alphabet, colors, shapes etc. Thanks to Gretish for this suggestion.
Bibliotastic has an interesting and unique collection of 15 free ebooks in their children's category. These may be viewed online without registration. Free registration is required to download in PDF, KINDLE or EPUB.
BillyBear4Kids offers several personalized story books and coloring books for download as PC programs. There is also a book available for free online reading in a flash player. There are also downloadable programs to encourage children to write their own books.
BookBox has about 20 free books available for download in pdf (as a single page) and MP3. Also free games and coloring books.
Book Goodies For Kids monitors Amazon (USA) for limited time free ebooks for children.
Bookie Jar has almost 2,000 free ebooks in its Children's Books Free Classics category and 1 free ebook in its Children's Books Free Indie category. All are available for free reading online without registration. Registration also allows free download in EPUB (Nook, iPad etc.) or Kindle compatible MOBI.
BookRix has more than 2900 free children's ebooks for free reading online or free download in EPUB. These are unpublished authors works. Age range of reading material varies from tot to teen.
Booksie is a site for self publishing authors and has over 1800 free works for children. These vary from short stories to full length novels. The short stories are available for free reading online and fee download in PDF. The novels and longer stories are available for free download in PDF.
BooksShouldBeFree has a good size collection of Childrens and Fairy Tales books available for download in plain text format.
BritishCouncil has a very nice collection of flash animated song and audio read-a-long stories. Games and other activities also available. Audio may be disabled for reading only. They also have posted the stories at YouTube.
Bubu Tales has 2 free books, in a wide variety of languages, available for free download in PDF
BuddhaNet offers about 15 Buddhist books for children as well as textbooks and coloring books for download in PDF.
Building Rainbows is a site where children may post reviews of books they have read. They also have 15 free classic novels available for free reading online without registration.
byGosh has about 20 illustrated classics for younger children, as well as 9 classics for older children. All are available for free reading online.
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.
Centsless Books monitors the top 100 free ebooks in Amazon's children section on an hourly basis.
Children's Bedtime Stories offer 20 free stories for free reading online. These are original stories by Gordon Dioxide.
ChildrensBooksForever has a nice collection of books in pdf. Additional comments from Cathy of PuzzlEd “I checked out ChildrensBooksForever and the books are just delightful! Gorgeous pictures and some good themes for primary-school kids (anger, bullying etc). Over 20 books available to download and use on computer, Smartboards etc, as well as viewing online (and in quite a variety of languages, too, apparently). Excellent for school or home use.”
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.
Childrenstory offers a smaller collection of fairy tales, nursery rhymes and holiday stories. There is also a story that was written and illustrated by 2d grader children. Caution that many of the other links lead to items for sale.
ChildStoryHour offers a good number of stories for free reading online. Included are Beatrix Potter, Andersen Fairy Tales, Native American folklore as well as other stories and poems. There are also other activities at the site.
ChildStoryTeller has a good number of short stories and nursery rhymes for reading online. No illustrations to speak of and most of the stories are classics that can be found elsewhere, but there are a few unique entries here.
Cindi In Education offers 2 free educational comic books for middle school and high school children.
Cinnamon Bear Free stories and other activities about Paddy O'Cinnamon, the bear.
Clarkness has a large collection of free ebooks for kindergarten and first grade children. These are available in PDF for free download.
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.
Classicly has a nice collection of free books for children and young readers. Most are available for download in pdf, kindle or MP3 (audiobook). The Young Reader Collection only lists four books, but if you click on links in the introductory paragraph, you will be taken to other works. Thanks to Tyler G for this suggestion.
ClassicReader (Young Readers) Several hundred classic books for young readers available for online viewing.
Classics For Young People an alphabetical listing of authors of classic novels for young readers with links to online versions of appropriate works by each author.
CyberKids offers free books, written by children, for online viewing. Unique collection divided into several genre categories. Also offers some interactive stories, music and activities.
Daily Cheap Reads Jr. monitors Amazon for limited time free offerings for children. Not as many entries as some of the other sites that monitor Amazon. eMail updates are available.
Disney.Go offers the free picture book, Lady and the Tramp, for free reading online in their flash player. No registration needed.
DLTK-Teach offers free printable children's books. Most are geared towards pre-schoolers, including a set on the alphabet, but there are some stories for older children also. Suggested by Cathy of PuzzlEd.
DMOZ has a huge listing of free ebooks and other activities for children and teens around the web. Many of the books are listed on the Literature page, but if you look around, you will find more.
Don't Spank Hank David Peters offers this picture ebook for free download in PDF and SWF.
East of the Web offers 23 free short stories for children for free online reading. This is a mix of classic and original modern works.
EasyMediaBroadcast has a nice little collection of classic children's books with many of Beatrix Potter's works. The works are available for download in TK3 and as .exe. Downloads were a bit slow, but the quality of the works was very good.
eBookJunkie has about 65 free ebooks for children available for free download in PDF without registration. These are unique entries not found elsewhere.
eBooks@Adelaide has a large listing of free classic children's novels in chronological order.
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. Additional free children's books are available here at this page
Ebooks For All Links to 86 free classic ebooks. Links are offsite, so download and viewing options vary.
eBooks Free Free Free posts daily listings of free ebook offerings at Amazon (USA). I did not see a way to go to older posts, so it is a good idea to use their email updates or RSS feed.
eBook Takeaway has 226 free classic ebooks in their Fiction-Children/Juvenile category available for free download in PDF, TEXT and HTML without registration.
eduplace offers 14 “leveled” books for online reading or printing.
Electric Scotland has over 800 free children's books, for children of all ages, available for free reading online. These are unique and original stories and many are illustrated.
ePubBooks has an interesting collection of classic fairy tale books, with some unique entries. These are available for free download in EPUB.
eReader News 
monitors Amazon (USA) for limited time free ebook offerings. This link is to their Children and Middle Grade listings. eMail updates for this category are available.
eReaderPerks monitors free releases at Amazon (as well as for Nook and Kobo) and has very good category listings, including children. Subscribers can now get customizable, genre-specific emails for children books age 0 to 12.
ETextCenter the electronic text center of the University of Virginia has a large collection of works for children and young adults available for online viewing. These are classic works and many are available elsewhere, but there are some unique ones. Books are sorted by author name.
FableLibrary has an interesting and unique collection of children's works. Most are available for viewing online, including some flash versions. But a few are available for download. Suggested by Cathy of PuzzlEd.
Fanatics4Classics provides links to a large collection of Children's books at Project Gutenberg.
FarmhouseFables offers 5 short story books about the little creatures that have made their home in the meadow next to the old farmhouse.
Feedbooks (Fairy Tales) has a small but unique collection of fairy tale books from around the globe available for download in Kindle, ePub and PDF.
Fiction eBooks (Children's Illustrated) 8 of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books very nicely illustrated.
FictionPress has 2695 free works in its Kids Fiction Archive. These appear to be original and unpublished works and most are short stories. These are available for free reading online.
FKB monitors Amazon for limited time free ebook offerings and maintains a Children/Young Adult category. The posts clearly show which free books are for younger and older children. Also has links to the “always free” ebook offerings for children and young adults at Amazon. eMail updates are available.
FloridaDisaster.org offers three books on hazardous weather for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade readers in download in PDF.
Foboko has 12 free unique ebooks in their children's ebook section. These are all available for free reading online without registration. Free registration is required to download in a variety of formats. There is a limit of 5 free downloads per month.
Free & Discounted Books this link is to their Children's category for free ebooks. All the ones I looked at were from Amazon (USA).
Freebook Sifter lists both recent limited time offers and classics from Amazon. Ranks listings by average user rating. Also has nice feature of further subcategories to set age range and other options. Thanks to Rob Schifreen of our site TSA for this link.
FreeChildrenStories offers 17 free stories for online reading. Stories may be sorted by difficulty or age. For children aged 1 to 10.
Free eBooks Daily monitors Amazon for limited time free ebook offerings and maintains a Children's category. Most posts are for USA, Canada and UK free ebooks. RSS feed available.
FreeKidsBooks has a nice collection of original children's books available for free download in PDF. Age range is from toddlers to young adults.
Free Read Feed (UK) has over 5,000 free ebook listings from Amazon (UK). They monitor recent free offerings as well as showing some that are always free. Like their USA counterpart below, the site offers sorting by genre, time offered, length and popularity. This link is to the Children's Non-Fiction, Children's Fiction and Children and Teens genre listings.
Free Read Feed (USA) regularly posts, throughout the day, the limited time free ebook offerings at Amazon (USA). This is an extensive listing of the free ebook offerings, showing the genre (with option to exclude that genre or show only that genre in results) and the length of the ebook. They have some filtering options, length of ebook and date of free offering as well as a large genre listing option to exclude genres (click on Pick from a list). This link is to the Children's ebooks, Children's Fiction and Children's Non-Fiction genre listings
GailSpencerLamm offers her illustrated ebook, Emily's Patience, for free online viewing or download.
Giggle Poetry a large collection of funny poetry for children available for free reading online. Also, a poetry class for children to learn to write poetry and other activities are available for free.
Gilead.org provides many of the fairy tales and stories of Hans Christian Andersen. These are available for free reading online without registration.
Giraffian offers a nice collection of books for pre-schoolers, covering the alphabet, numbers colors and other topics. Suggested by Cathy of PuzzlEd.
GoldenGems a collection of little golden books and other illustrated books for children for online viewing and saving as jpg.
GoodnightStories is a nice little collection of unique children stories for reading online. A good number of the stories were written by children. Some other activities and printable coloring pages are also available.
Google Book Search (Fairy Tales) 578 works for online viewing, from the 1850s-1920s.
Grammaropolis has a book, video, songs and games to help children learn proper grammar.
GrimmFairyTales has a small collection of The Grimm's fairy tales for free reading online in a flash player. Also available are some associated activities.
Hiyah offers some reading skills software for children 18 months to 6 years of age, which may also be used online without download. Thanks to bowhunter1951 for this suggestion.
Hundred Zeros UK monitors the “Best Sellers” list at Amazon (UK) and offers RSS feeds for this listing for a great deal of genres. This link is to the Children's eBooks (Fiction, Non-Fiction and Puzzles and Games) genre listing.
Hundred Zeros USA monitors the “Best Sellers” list at Amazon (USA and India) and has all the listings on one page. They offer RSS and eMail updates. This link is to the Children's eBooks (Fiction and Non-Fiction) genre listings
i Love eBooks monitors Amazon for limited time free ebook offerings and maintains a Children's category. They do not post a large amount of offerings as they restrict to those ebooks that have positive reviews. email updates available.
Indie Author Club lists 167 always free children's ebooks at Amazon (USA).
Indie Book Of The Day monitors Amazon (USA UK) for limited time free ebook offerings in the Children's ebook category.
InklessTales offers 15 stories for online viewing as well as games, poems and activities.
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.
IPL2 has 10 free stories for free reading online without registration.
JesusandKidz offers a good number of illustrated bible stories for free reading online. Also available are coloring pages, puzzles and songs.
Joggoon has 30 classic children novels available for free reading online. There are some unique listings here.
Johnnie's Story Page most of these are links offsite, but it is a very nice collection and well sorted for beginning and more advanced readers. All the ones I looked at were flash presentations and also had audio available.
Kellscraft (Children's Books) nice collection (100) of children's books from the 1890s-1920s.
Kids Learning Centre Free books and other activities for children.
KidsKnowIt is not a book site, but it does have a lot of reading for children, along with educational puzzles and games.
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.
KidsPages offers free illustrated ebooks for reading online as well as other learning activities for younger children. These stories are generally classic children stories.
KidStoriesOnline offers free stories online (with optional audio), free ebooks, audio books and videos. Some require providing an email, but most are available to all.
Kids World Fun has 81 free ebooks for children available for free reading online or free download in PDF without registration. There are also 21 animated read-a-long stories available for free viewing online. There are also free poems and short stories as well as games at the site.
Kindersay is a site for free preschool learning activities. ABCs. short stories and sign language subjects available in a free flash player presentation. Free registration is available for extra features, but not necessary to access subjects.
Kindersite offer a good number of stories in flash for reading and listening online as well as lullabies, music and games for younger children.
Kindle Nation Daily has a separate listing of limited time Free Young Adult/Children ebooks from Amazon (USA). The dates I looked at had 20 or so free ebooks listed daily, with the vast majority being for younger children
Knowledgerush has a small, but interesting, collection with a good listing of Oz and Tom Swift books, along with some other classics for viewing online. Also a young adults section.
KOL Jr has 44 free picture ebooks for free reading online in a flash player. These all come with audio for read-a-long. No registration needed.
Land of Magic has a large collection of free books. Many are available for free reading online and some for free download in PDF. Also, a large amount of audio books and other activities.
Land of Nursery Rhymes large collection of nursery rhymes for free reading and listening online. Other activities available.
LearningPage has a series (38) of printable “Tommy” story books suitable for about 8-10-year-olds, plus some other printable books, for free. Requires free registration. Suggested by Cathy of PuzzlEd.
LibraryofCongress maintains a nice collection of classic children's books in its Children's 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.
Light Up Your Brain is primarily known as an children's audio book site, but they also provide a copy of the stories for free reading online. No registration needed.
LilFingers Storybooks Small collection of books for very young children for reading and being read to.
Little Critters A dozen free stories in their interactive read and play section presented in a flash player. Other activities also available. The library section is just a listing of books that are for sale.
LiverpoolMuseum offers the stories of 4 children taken into slavery on their trip from Africa to the Americas in 1780. The stories start with their life in Africa and continue until the Americas. Some make the trip alive and some do not. Each is from a different tribe in Africa.
LongLongTimeAgo is a large collection of fables, myths, folk tales, fairy tales and more from around the world. These are available for reading online.
Magickeys small, but interesting and unusual, collection for online viewing
ManyBooks (Young Readers) 2390 books available for online viewing or download in an extremely large variety of formats.
MegaMouseBooks offers two dozen books by Emma Laybourn for free reading online or free download in ePub or Mobi formats. Age range is from 5 to 12. Associated crossword puzzles are also available.
MemoWare (Children's eBooks) 686 books available for download in varying formats
MerpyStories offers several animated flash stories, with accompanying music, for online viewing. The unique stories of Merpy, Jeremy Dragonfly and Rufus the Firefly available in English and Spanish. Other activities available.
Michael Hardgrove offers his illustrated book, “The Echo and the Pixie” for free reading online.
Mightybook is a pay site, but it offers a good size collection of very interesting and free flash animation storybooks, story songs, Beatrix Potter stories and more. I thought the music and art section, which combines classical music and art, was a very good idea.
Mother Goose Club a collection of nursery rhymes available for free reading online without registration. Also, some songs, videos and coloring pages.
MrsPStorytime reads a few classic stories, some children written stories and animal stories read by Mrs P in a YouTube video, with read along captions.
Munsey's (Children Books) 2283 free books available in HTML or a good variety of downloads.
Munsey'sMobile has over 2000 free books in its Children's category. These are all available for free viewing online and are also available for download in PDF, PRC and ePUB. These appear to be different works than those available on the regular Munsey's site, above.
MuseumofUnnaturalHistory has a small collection of illustrated childrens' stories for online viewing. these are unique stories not found elsewhere.
MyKidsCorner offers a good number of stories, interactive stories, rhymes, alphabet, games and puzzles and pictures for children aged 3 to 7. All are available for free online reading.
MysteryNetKids has a good size collection of mysteries for children to solve. There are 28 “Solve-It” stories, 29 “Chiller” stories from the Darkmaster, 28 “Quick Solve” stories, 28 Magic Tricks and 21 mystery stories written by children that won the mystery writing contest at the site.
MyYoungChild has a good variety of free stories designed for value building in children aged 3 to 7. Some are read only, presented as images and some are listen alongs, presented in videos.
Neverpedia has a complete listing of the Peter Pan novels available for free reading online.
Nobooko lists over 1,100 free ebooks from Kobo and Smashwords in their Kids & Teens categories. Kobo requires registration and all books are in EPUB. At the time of this post there was only 1 ebooks from Smashwords and it was in German.
Northpole good sized collection of free Christmas related stories to read on line (or have read aloud). Flash presentation on main page to access stories and hidden stories to find.
No Twiddle Twaddle a daily listing of the free books for children available at Amazon. There are also book lists (that may contain books that are not free) and other children resources available.
Nyla's Crafty Teaching has links to 120 free ebooks for children over at Amazon. The links are contained within a pdf file. There are also links to 5 free picture books on this page.
OxfordOwl has over 250 free ebooks for free reading online in a flash player. Age range is from 3 to 11. Audio and associated activities are also available for most, if not all, the free ebooks. Thanks to Katharine for this nice link.
PBSKids has a few read along stories as well as several short educational videos for young children.
PlanetOzKids has an interesting collection of stories relating to myths about animals. Also available are detective stories to work along with. All available for online viewing.
Popular Children's Stories a nice collection of stories for children available for free reading online without registration. Most are short stories, with some longer ones.
Professor Garfield Garfield the cat hosts a website with a good collection of original and unique stories for younger readers (press the Read button on the home page). Most of the content is available for free reading online in a flash viewer without registration. There are also some books available for free download in PDF without registration.
Project Gutenberg (USA) (Children) Large collection divided into sub-categories available for download in several formats.
ProfessorGarfield offers 11 free books for beginner readers. These are nicely illustrated and are read in their “toon reader”. There is an option to have the book read aloud using human voices as the child reads. Interesting and unique collection. Available in several languages. Other activities also available at the site.
PuzzlEd is not a book site, but has links to sites offering free books (which will be incorporated here when I have time) and a collection of jigsaw and other puzzles and other activities for children.
Read.Gov offers 23 classic illustrated books for children for free reading online or free download in PDF.
Reading Bear A phonics learning site for beginning readers. Free audio and visual presentations.
Read Free Book links to several free children's ebooks at Smashwords, which means they are available for free reading online or free download in several formats. Half of the books listed are no longer free and half are still free.
Reading Games has 6 free classic illustrated stories for younger children available for free reading (and read-a-long) online without registration. There are also some reading and vocabulary games for new readers at the site.
ReadingHawk has a large collection of Dolch Sight Word stories available for free reading online and some are also available for free download in PDF. These are intended for beginning readers.
ReadingIsFundamental offers a variety of free reading and listening activities for toddlers and preschoolers in flash presentations.
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.
Robert Munsch has about 60 books by Robert Munsch for reading online and read by him available for download in MP3 format.
RodCockle offers a nice collection of illustrated books for online viewing, as well as games and puzzles for 4-8 year olds. Suggested by Cathy of PuzzlEd.
RobTowner has about 15 original stories of his own available for free reading online. These are in a flash player. There are also a few available for free download in PDF. Separated into baby, kids, teens and young adult categories. He will also write stories upon request.
Room108KidsStories offers about 25 animated stories, with accompanying music, for reading online. These are unique stories not found elsewhere.
Scholastic Small collection of children's books available for online viewing (or read to you). Featuring Clifford the Big Red Dog, Alice in Wonderland and a couple of others.
Scholastic Mini-books has a good selection of stories available to read or print, many of which are free. Suggested by Cathy of PuzzlEd.
SebastianSwan a collection of Sebastian Swan stories for online viewing.
Sesame Street has 5 free Sesame Street picture ebooks for free reading online. Looks like the free books are changed weekly and email updates are available.
Shay's Imagination offers the unique stories and poems of Shay for online reading or download in pdf.
Short Stories Free has 5 free short stories for children available for free reading online.
SillyBooks has a number of free books available for online reading. There are also puzzles, games and contests.
Smashwords has over 300 free ebooks for free online viewing or download in a variety of formats. These are generally unpublished works and unique to this site. The site does also offer books for purchase, but all the works in this list are available for free.
Snapdragon the BBC of Wales presents the story of Goldilocks for free reading online in their flash player as well as other early learning reading activities.
Snick's List monitors Amazon (USA) for limited time free ebooks. This link is to the Children's Fiction category. They also monitor Children's Non-Fiction. They do offer email updates, but not for specific categories.
Speakaboos has what appears to be a large collection of free stories for reading and listening online. All are in a flash player. The site is very slow to load pages. Each of the images on the page linked seems to lead to at least 4 stories each and the images on the bottom half circle also lead to additional free stories (the ones I check all were accompanied by songs. Geared to younger children.
Starfall has online flash presentations designed for first graders to entertain and educate.
StoriesForChildren has 8 Christmas stories by Carolyn Rogers for online viewing and apparently some woodland creature stories soon to come.
StoriesForMyLittleSister is a collection of original stories written by a big sister for her little sister. Interesting collection of illustrated stories and also other activities.
StoriestoGrowBy has a large collection of folk and fairy tales for children from around the world for online viewing.
Storybird unites artists and writers to create some excellent illustrated stories. On the left hand side of the page are the age divisions for the story's readers, ranging from preschool to adult. They claim there is over 5 million stories created there. Every story I saw was available for free reading and viewing online.
StoryPlace has a few stories for preschooler and elementary school age children presented in flash animation. This site seems to go off line quite a bit (and back on) as I have added and deleted it several times.
StoryTimeForMe a nice site with unique entries aimed for toddlers through 2d grade. Interesting combination of old fashioned animated book and flash video.
Stuart Stories has 9 free books for beginning readers and about 30 free books for older children. All are available for free reading online and most are also available for free download in PDF.
SurLaLuneFairyTales offers a very nice and large collection of fairy tales from around the world for online reading.
Talewins has a interesting mix of classics and original books for children available for free viewing online or for free download in PDF.
The Birmingham Grid For Learning presents The Tooth Fairy, a story written and illustrated by a 4th grade class for free reading online without registration.
The Cheap a site that monitors Amazon for its limited time free ebook offerings also offers a section for free book offers for children.
The Lancashire Grid For Learning has a nice collection of free ebooks for children of all ages. Also available are activities related to the books. All are available for free reading online without registration. Click on an appropriate section on the left hand side menu to find the books. This is a UK site with British spelling.
The Literature for Children Collection a resource from the University of Florida (USA) featuring children books published from before 1850 to beyond 1950. These are JPG scans visible in their viewer. Warning that some of these books have racist language.
TheManorSchool offers a collection of Greek myths and legends for online viewing. Featured within the stories is the artwork of children of the school.
TheMoonlitRoad has 11 stories for children for online reading. A mix of ghost stories, folktales, myths and legends from the American South.
The Online Books Page provides links to free books that have either won the Newberry award for outstanding children's books or have received an “Honor” and are in the public domain. Download and viewing options vary as these are links offsite.
ThePomplemousse has three original stories about the adventures of Pomplemousse, intended for children and adults.
The Public Domain Review has 8 classic books for children for for free online viewing within their viewer. The books originate from Open Library and may be downloaded there. They also feature a Fairytales/Folk Tales section with 10 free books. All of these free ebooks are from the late 19th and early 20th century and are nicely illustrated.
The University of Southern Mississippi presents The Cinderella Project, which is a compilation of a dozen variations of the classic fairy tale (press on the Archives link). Also available are the Little Red Riding Hood Project and the Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant-Killer project.
Thunderbolt Kids Siyavula presents free illustrated workbooks and comic books for grades 4 through 6 for free download in PDF. These are natural science and technology related works. Free teacher guides are also available.
ToddlerSchool has a small collection of illustrated books to read and listen to online. Also has educational games for younger children. Suggested by Sefi
Tonight'sBedtimeStory offers 79 classic fairy tales for download or online viewing in PDF.
Topmarks an UK learning site. This link is to their English section, which has reading materials for children aged 5 to 18. All are available for free reading online without registration.
Toy Box Productions offers over 20 original works for free reading online in their flash viewer. This is split between historical works and Bible stories.
TumbleBook Cloud Collections the Huntley Library offers free access to the excellent collections of TumbleBooks. The TumbleBook Library and TumbleBook Jr., collections are the best selections for younger readers. There are read-a-longs and other reading learning features available. All are available for free reading online.
uMassAmherstAesop'sFables offers a collection of Aesop's fables, with illustrations from students in the Computing in the Fine Arts course for online viewing.
UPenn Digital Library has within its A Celebration of Women Writers collection a section for Newberry honor books written by women (Newberry is an award for children books given out by the Library Association) spanning from 1922 to 1964. These are available for free reading online without registration.
Vintage Cookbooks includes in their collection of vintage cookbooks a collection of vintage cookbooks from the late 1800s to 1950s for children. These will popup in an online reader, but if you look on the upper left of the reader, there is a link to OPen Library where the book may be downloaded in a wide variety of ebook formats. No registration needed.
WackyWebTales offers a good size collection of short tales for 3rd graders and above. Geared to help with parts of speech.
Walking By The Way has an impressive listing of free classic books for children. It is called a list for Kindle ebooks, but most are available in many ebook formats.
Web-Books has 92 free classic children's novels. These are all available to read free online or for download in WEB and WEB database. Viewing the downloads requires their Web Viewer (free) which is clean as far as I can tell
WeGiveBooks has 198 books available for online reading in a flash player. Reading the books helps to distribute books to children around the world. Over 1 million books have been read and given away. Age range is from newborn to teens. Thanks to aJane for this nice site.
WikiJunior age-appropriate non-fiction ebooks for children aged birth to 12 years old available for free reading online without registration.
WikiSource has a large collection of classic poetry, novels (fiction), fairy tales and educational non-fiction works in their Children portal. All are available for free reading online without registration (the ones in blue are available)
WiredForBooks has a nice collection of Beatrix Potter books as well as a few others for online reading and also available in audio.
Woodlands Junior School presents a 7 chapter interactive Pokemon story to aid in developing reading skills and apprehension. This is a UK site with British spelling.
WorldofTales a collection of folktales, fairy tales and fables from around the world available for online viewing.
Young Peoples Zone a nice sized collection of classic literature for children available for free reading online without registration.
YourBedtimeStory There are not a lot of stories and the stories are not very long, but this site does have a nice twist that you can personalize the story. There are also coloring pages along with the stories.
ZiggityZoom has 17 free online stories available for reading and listening. These all are displayed in a flash player. Geared to younger children.