We are so blessed that we live in a time where living books are so easily accessible online and can be read for free! Sharing with you a list of my personal picks.
Why Are They Free?
Titles on this list are free because they already belong to the public domain. There are publishers who reprint these books but if you’re okay with getting a digital copy, you can easily find them free online.
You can get them through these sites:
I will be linking all the titles at their Archive.org and Gutenberg links because they provide links to different versions of each title (PDF, Kindle, etc.)
Our List of Free Living Books for Young Kids:
This is NOT a comprehensive list at all, but is instead a list of our personal favorites. These are books that I have either read to my child or have personally browsed through and plan to use in the future.
And because I’m sure that there will be more titles that I’ll eventually want to add, feel free to bookmark this page. I’ll be continuously updating it as I discover more titles!
Most of these titles I got from the recommendations of Ambleside Online, Our Living Learning and various Charlotte Mason Blogs online.
Reading/Literature
- Reading-Literature: The Primer by Free and Treadwell
- Reading-Literature: First Reader by Free and Treadwell
- Parables from Nature
- In Story Land by Elizabeth Harrison
- Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
- Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit
- Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
- Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Classics
- Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
- Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
- Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
Math
History
- Our Island Story by HE Marhsall
- Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
- Fifty Famous People by James Baldwin
- Viking Tales by Jennie Hall
- On the Shores of the Great Sea by MB Synge
Geography
- Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason
- Home Geography by C.C. Long
- The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on a Round Ball That Floats in the Air by Jane Andrews
- Each and All: The Seven Little Sisters Prove Their Sisterhood by Jane Andrews
- Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago to Now
Natural History/Science
- Nature Stories for Young Readers: Plant Life by Florence Bass
- Nature Stories for Young Readers: Animal Life by Florence Bass
- The Bee People by Margaret Morley
- Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock
- Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thomton Burgess
Filipino
Music
- A Child’s Own Book of Great Musicians by Theodore Presser
- Mozart the Wonder Boy by Opal Wheeler
- Ludwig Beethoven by Opal Wheeler
Printing the Books
There are many ways to print the books so you can have your own physical copy.
You can ask a professional printer to print it for you (I recommend 3L Digital Printing Services, my go-to printer for everything).
You can also print and bind it yourself. You can use fasteners, staplers and if you’re patient, you can even stitch the pages together! Haha.
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So many beautiful living books online and the problem now is which ones to print next! Haha. Hope this post helps you. And let me know in the comments below if you have other suggestions and recommendations!
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