Find Free Books for Your Child
Find Free Books for Your Child
NYCPS and other community organizations provide a number of ways to access FREE books for your child in a variety of languages.
- Hard Copies: Check out hard-copy books in many languages for FREE at the New York Public Library (nypl.org) (locations in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island), Brooklyn Public Library (bklynlibrary.org), and/or Queens Public Library (queenslibrary.org) in your neighborhood. Ask a librarian to help you find books in your home language. If your school has a librarian, they can also help you to find books in your language that will interest your child.
- E-Books: Sora (on.nyc.gov/sora) is a FREE reading app for NYCPS students with e-books in 20 languages.
- Audiobooks: Listen to FREE audiobooks or digital read-alouds while on the train or in the car.
- Sora offers audiobooks for students of all ages.
- The New York Public Library offers FREE audiobooks (nypl.overdrive.com) to check out online. The World Languages tab (bit.ly/20pluslanguages) can help you find options in 20 languages.
- Literacy in Community (LINC) offers FREE read-alouds for early learners on YouTube in English and Spanish that your child can watch (youtube.com/@lincnyc1).
- Barbershop Books has a variety of FREE read-aloud videos that are great for elementary school students. These videos are focused particularly on inspiring Black boys to read for fun (https://www.youtube.com/@barbershopbooks1731).
- Find Books that will be FUN for your Child
Just like adults, children are more eager to read books that interest them! So, help your child find books that they are excited to read.
- Let your child’s interests guide you. Ask questions to help your child figure out what they are excited to read about. For example:
- You loved the last Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. Is there another book in that series we can find?
- You loved that basketball movie we saw last week. Let’s find books about sports.
- It was great to make dumplings with your grandmother last night, right? Let’s find a book to learn more about our heritage.
- What questions do you have about science and how things work in the world? Let’s find a book to answer some of those questions.
- What are you learning about in reading class these days? What has it made you curious about?
- Fun, not frustration. Reading shouldn’t feel like a chore. It’s okay if reading is sometimes challenging, but it should not be so difficult that your child gets frustrated. To figure out if a book is too difficult for your child to read independently, try the ‘five finger rule’ (bit.ly/rightbooks). Open to page two of the book. Have your child hold up one finger for each word they do not know. If there are five or more words they do not know, pick another book. And don’t discount texts that aren’t traditional books. Graphic novels, blogs, and news are great. Reading is reading!