How to Get Free Books for Kids by Mail and Online

Your child asks for the same three picture books every night, and a new picture book at the store costs more than dinner. Free books for kids are not leftovers or damaged stock. Dolly Parton's Imagination Library mails a new title every month, one library card opens millions of ebooks, and a few reading sites never ask for a card number at all.

Why free books for kids are easier to get than most parents think

Free children's books come from organizations whose entire job is putting print into small hands. Dolly Parton's Imagination Library has been mailing books to young children since 1995, and the program says one in six children under five in the United States now receives them (imaginationlibrary.com). Public libraries spend their budgets on the same goal and lend the digital copies at no charge.

None of it depends on proving you are short of money. The Imagination Library explains that Dolly Parton wanted to "ensure that every child would have books, regardless of their family's income." A Los Angeles Public Library card is free to residents and opens more than 1.5 million ebooks and audiobooks (lapl.org).

What stops most families is not eligibility. Each route has its own form, its own age window, and nobody hands you the list.

Two kinds of free: books that arrive, and books you borrow

Books that arrive are yours to keep. Mailed programs, giveaway tables and sharing boxes fall here, and they build the home shelf a child returns to alone at seven in the morning.

Books you borrow are digital or returnable. Library apps, public-domain sites and swap shelves fall here, and they cover the volume a four-year-old burns through in a week.

Set up one of each. A keeper shelf without borrowing goes stale, and borrowing without a keeper shelf leaves nothing to re-read. Our guide to building a mini library for your child covers the keeper half.

How to set a child up with free books this month

The step most parents skip

You can finish all six steps in one evening. Work in order, because the library card is the key that unlocks the largest pile.

1. Search the Imagination Library for your address. The program runs in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Republic of Ireland, and a Local Program Partner has to cover your area before you can register (imaginationlibrary.com). If a partner covers you and your child is under five, register the same evening. Enrollment does not backdate, so every week you wait is one book you never receive.
2. Get a library card, and get one for your child too. Many systems issue a digital card online in minutes to residents. Los Angeles, for example, gives city residents an e-card instantly and lets everyone else pre-register before a branch visit.
3. Install Libby and hoopla, then sign in with that card. Libby is the library app by OverDrive and lends ebooks and audiobooks (libbyapp.com). Hoopla adds comics, movies and music alongside books and bills itself as "all free from your public library" (hoopladigital.com). Your library may carry one, both, or neither.
4. Bookmark two sites that never charge. Project Gutenberg's children's shelf and Open Library are enough to start. Put them in a browser folder your child can reach, not buried in your history.
5. Find one physical source within walking distance. Use the Little Free Library world map or its mobile app to locate a sharing box, and note the next library book sale while you are there.
6. Set one repeating calendar reminder. Fifteen minutes on the first Saturday of the month is enough to place holds, return expired loans and refill the basket by the couch.

The half-step most parents skip is the child's own card in step 2. A separate card doubles your hold slots, keeps a preschooler's picture books out of your own borrowing queue, and gives a six-year-old something to hand over at the desk.

Walk into the search with themes rather than titles. A child who wants dinosaurs will take a dinosaur book from any of these routes, and a short list of story themes by interest beats scrolling a catalog cold.

Story ideasBedtime story ideas by themeUnicorns, dinosaurs, space and more

Mail programs vs. library cards vs. free reading sites

Which route to start with

Start with the route that matches your child's age. Under five, the Imagination Library returns the most for ten minutes of typing, because the books keep arriving without you doing anything else. Over five, the library card does the heavy lifting, and an ereader makes the borrowed pile portable, which our look at Kindles for kids' books weighs up.

Free reading sites that ask for nothing

What "public domain" means for your bookshelf

Project Gutenberg's Children & Young Adult Reading shelf holds books whose copyright has expired, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Little Women and The Secret Garden (gutenberg.org). There is no account, no card and no payment step anywhere.

Open Library is an initiative of the Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and describes itself as "an open, editable library catalog" building toward a web page for every book ever published (openlibrary.org). Browsing is open to anyone; borrowing a scanned copy needs a free account.

Unite for Literacy plays short digital picture books in the browser and is built so children "experience the joy and power of books on their path to becoming a lifelong reader" (uniteforliteracy.com). Narration is offered in a long list of languages, Navajo, Cherokee, Ojibwe and Spanish among them, which matters when the grown-up reading tonight is not the parent.

Public domain means the copyright has run out, and the practical effect is age. The writing is Victorian and Edwardian, the sentences run long, and the pictures are engravings. Read those aloud rather than handing them to an early reader, and keep the modern titles coming from the library apps.

Swaps, giveaways, and books handed out at a checkup

Start a sharing box on your own street

Little Free Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit built on one rule, "Take a Book. Share a Book.", and its world map and mobile app show the boxes nearest you (littlefreelibrary.org). Boxes near an elementary school turn over fastest, so check those first on a weekend morning.

Reach Out and Read puts books into pediatric care. At the beginning of a well-child visit, the clinic gives "each child a new, developmentally-appropriate book to take home with them", and the program stocks books in 38 languages (reachoutandread.org). Ask at your next checkup whether your practice takes part.

Your own overflow feeds the same system. Clearing the outgrown board books makes room for new ones, and our list of places to donate kids' books and toys shows where they do the most good. If no box stands within walking distance, build one, and read the weatherproofing notes before you cut any wood.

Mistakes that cost money, time, or safety

Pirated children's book sites

• Searching for "free kids books PDF": those results are scans of books still in copyright. The pages lean on fake download buttons, pop-ups and bundled installers, so the risk lands on your device as well as on the illustrator's income. Every safe route named above is a library, a publisher or a public-domain archive.
• Signing up for a "free" book box without reading the renewal terms: a box that ships one free shipment and then bills a card on a schedule is a subscription with a grace period. Read the cancellation wording before you type the card number, and weigh whether a paid box earns its keep at all, which our review of kids' book subscriptions works through.
• Enrolling in a mail program too late: the Imagination Library stops at the fifth birthday. A child registered at four gets around twelve books; a child registered at birth gets five years of them.
• Taking whatever is free instead of what fits: a free chapter book handed to a three-year-old sits unread, and a board book handed to a seven-year-old insults them. Match the book to the child, and leave the rest in the box for someone else.
• Letting holds and loans expire unopened: Libby and hoopla return books on their own, and a lapsed hold goes to the back of the queue. The monthly fifteen-minute reminder exists for this.
• Waiting for one route to cover everything: no single source supplies a whole childhood. Two routes running at once is the minimum that keeps new books arriving.

Your free-books checklist

• Imagination Library: address searched, and the child registered if a partner covers you.
• Library cards: one for you, one for each child old enough to sign.
• Apps: Libby and hoopla installed and signed in on the phone or tablet you use every day.
• Bookmarks: Project Gutenberg's children's shelf and Open Library saved where your child can find them.
• One physical source: a sharing box, a library sale date, or a swap on the calendar.
• A monthly reminder: fifteen minutes to place holds, return loans and restock the basket.

Free routes cover volume, and volume is what turns a child into a reader, which is the point our toddler reading habits guide keeps coming back to. What free routes rarely cover is a book about your own child, by name, for a birthday or a first day of school. When you want the one title no library can lend, make a book where your child is the hero and let the free shelf keep doing the rest.