Entertainment

Audible Made A Collection Of Children's Books Free To Listen To Online

by Madison Vanderberg
Shot of a focused young little boy browsing on a digital tablet
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Audible Stories released a collection of free audiobooks for kids to get through quarantine together

As the stay-at-home orders extend into the summer and our local and federal leaders argue over when schools will reopen, online content hubs are doing their part to make the quarantine days and remote learning a little easier. Disney Plus is coming through will all-new content like Hamilton and a Frozen 2 docuseries and Harry Potter At Home is enchanting and awesome, and now Audible — Amazon’s Audiobook source — has launched Audible Stories, a kid-friendly hub filled with free audiobooks for every sort of young reader.

“For as long as schools are closed, we’re open. Right now, kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across eight different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids,” the company wrote in a statement.

The curated selection of top-notch children’s books includes categories like littlest listeners, elementary, tween, teen, and literary classics. Plus, a brief scroll through the home page shows titles like Harry Potter, Winnie-the-Pooh, Jane Eyre, and The Junglebook, so this is solid reading material.

Though the curated collection is aimed at children, the Literary Classics section is really for everyone. Now is the time to finally listen to all those Jane Austen novels you keep telling yourself you’ll listen to in your attempt to “read more,” and like, “explore the classics.”

Also, I don’t know about you, but in this new extremely digital era, I have password fatigue. Zoom logins and delivery apps and grocery store apps, it’s all too much to remember and keep track off. Also, with Audible Stories, you don’t even have to input a credit card and then remember to cancel it in three months. Audible Stories is totally free and open — all you have to do is scroll through the site, find a story you want to listen to on your laptop, desktop, phone, or tablet, click on “start listening,” and you’re in.

In other “free quarantine listening” news that your kids might like, the entire Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone saga is being narrated weekly by iconic voices from the Wizarding World and Hollywood. Case in point: Daniel Radcliffe narrated the first chapter and Dakota Fanning is set to read a future episode.

Times are rough and if Audible wants to roll out a bunch of free audiobooks, we’ll take it.