15 Fabulous Free Audiobooks for Kids.
Check out this list of the best kids audiobooks free to download!
My kids love listening to audiobooks. They listen in the car, on ipods while waiting at appointments, while they clean their rooms, and often while they fall asleep at night.
When the kids were little we had a selection of audio books on CD and borrowed CDs from the library, but these days our audiobooks are all digital and there is an amazing selection of fabulous free audiobooks for kids available online.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that listening to an audiobook is just as good for our kids as reading a print book, so if you don’t use this awesome resource you really should start.
If you have an audible account you can check out my list of our favourite kids audiobooks in my amazon store (affiliate links). But there are lots of great resources online for free audiobooks for kids, which is a perfect way to try them out and see if they are right for your kids.
Fifteen Fabulous Free Audiobooks for Kids
These audiobooks are all free to download, but you will need to double check what devices they work on, and whether you need to download an app first.
Sometimes it can be a little tricky to get the audiobook file onto a phone or device, but if you use a apple device you can download the audio file to dropbox and then use the Bound app to transfer it to your device.
The Wizard of Oz
This classic book is a long time favourite audiobook in our family. The voice acting of the narrator is great, and if you know the movie you’ll enjoy how different the book is. Did you know that Dorothy doesn’t go home for ages? There are several more books about her adventures in Oz!
Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass.
We’ve listened to these two books so many times we can recite parts of them! There is a full cast reading these classic books and they are very well done.
Rikki Tikki Tarvi from Story Nory
I’ve just picked one favourite from Story Nory to link to, but they have so many to choose from. Story Nory is done in a podcast format and you can find it easily on itunes and Spotify and other podcast services which makes it really easy to access.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Some of these original Grimm’s fairy tales are a little gruesome, but they are great to listen to! Older kids might even find they really enjoy these versions of fairy tales.
The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munch.
Unfortunately you can no longer listen to Robert Munch reading his books on his website, but this YouTube video of Robert reading the Paper Bag Princess is awesome and well worth a watch/listen.
The Velveteen Rabbit.
There are a few versions of this classic picture book as an audiobook but this one, read by B J Harrison is my favourite.
Anne of Green Gables.
Anne of Green Gables is a great story to listen to as a family. Perfect for a long car tip.
Wind in The Willows.
We love the voices in this version of Wind in the Willows. It’s another great choice for the whole family.
Lotus and Feather at Storlyline Online.
Ok so this isn’t technically an audio book… it’s a video book, but Storyline Online has so many great books, read by actors, and it’s great if you have younger kids. They have an app too which makes it easy to access it devices. The Lotus Feather is just one of our favourites, we also like Stellaluna and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge.
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin at Light Up Your Brain.
This is one of my favourite Beatrice Potter books, and there are a few others, plus quite a big selection of other audio books at Light Up Your Brain.
The Alien adventures of Finn Caspian
This is a a serialized story in podcast format, about an 8 year old boy exploring space. Each chapter/episode is about 20 minutes long and there are lots of them, so it’s great for either a quick listen on a regular basis, or a long car tip. There are lots more story podcasts and lots of other fab podcasts for kids, you can find some of our favourite podcasts for kids here, and even more here.
The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden is a favourite of my kids, and you can listen to the full version of the audio book free on Spotify. Spotify has quite a few classic audio book options for kids – The Jungle Book and Treasure Island are two more of our favourites.
A View from the Top – A Story Seeds Story
This is one of our favourite Story Seeds stories, but really, they are all awesome. Story Seeds match kids with a best selling author to help them bring their stories to life, and turn them into a podcast and audio book.
Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books of Many Colors
This is a huge collection of folktales and fairy tales by Scottish writer Andrew Lang. There are lots and lots of stories to choose from here.
The Water Babies.
This was one of my favourite books as a child. It was first published in 1863, but I still love this magical fantasy story.
Once you’ve tried out these free children’s audiobooks, have a look around each website to find some more great audiobook options. You can also check out your local libraries webpage and see if they have an audiobook borrowing service, then you’ll never run out of audiobooks!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing these beauties, Kate :)
We are always looking for a new audio book to listen to. Like you, we have them going at home, at bed/nap time, on the iPad, on the iPhone, in the car etc etc etc :)
We love borrowing audio books from the library too! Hubby has started to load some things up to his iphone for our road trip down to Victoria in January, so really appreciate having some other ones to add to the mix! He read the Wizard of Oz to them earlier this year, so I think they’d enjoy hearing that again :)
Thanks for this, am off to check them out. Does anybody know where I can download any upper primary audio novels, like Paul Jennings??
Librivox and podiobooks have lots of the classics that might appeal to upper primary ages…. but I’ve not found anywhere that has more modern books for free download. You might try audible.com if you are happy to pay, they have a HUGE selection.
Thanks Kate, just had a look at Audible.com and they do have lots which is great. :)
Hey Kate! This is a great post with a lot of sites I had no idea were out there.
Abby is still young so they are all geared toward picture books, but she really loved listening to these books and songs. There are a few podcasts on Itunes that you can subscribe too and Barefoot books also does music to a lot of their books.
You and your readers might like Books Should Be Free, Kate. http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/genre/Children
Thanks for these treasures! We are great fans of story CDs/downloads in long car trips and have avoided buying a DVD player by using them. I enjoy watching the kids looking out the window with faces turned up in concentration, imagining their own pictures to the story being read.
Thank you so much for this list! My boys love audio books.
Thank you, I’m just on the hunt for some audio books for my classroom.
What a great selection… Rikki Tikki Tavi was part of a benchmark reading assessment set we used at school. It was just an excerpt! Love the full story. Will definitely be using these, thanks!
Really awesome collection for kids. I will collect these for my kids.