If you are under the COVID-19 quarantine tired of watching series and movies and playing Call of Duty, perhaps it’s time to read a book — especially if you have kids. Good news: Apple put together a collection with a ton of free books to download, both for younglings and adults alike. There's audio books, too.
And these are not crap books. The selection is pretty darn good.
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Free books for kids on Apple Books
I have a young kid running around the house like he’s a one-man troupe reenacting Mad Max: Fury Road all by himself. And he’s getting tired of rewatching the few watchable kids shows on Netflix while his mom and I work. Thankfully, there is a lot of free books for kids in Apple’s virtual bookshelf.
Apple says it has “dozens” of Sesame Street books. It is not true. They have one hundred — just counted them. they are not kidding. Many of them are read long versions, which is perfect to get a kid to enjoy some time alone doing something interesting without supervision.
Free novels that are first of a series on Apple Books
This is a good idea, too: Apple is giving away free novels for adults that are the first volume of a series. It’s a good way to sample full series and see what interests you. And, yes, it’s good for Apple too, since these can get you hooked and move you to buy more books.
Some of the free books include Toni Anderson's A Cold Dark Place, Agent Zero by Jack Mars and Realm of Dragons by Morgan Rice.
At the time of publication there are 95 novels of mixed quality and for all tastes.
Audio books for free on Apple Books
Apple is also throwing in some really good audio books into the mix, some of them that could be listened to by the entire family as if we were all sitting around an old radio like in the pre-TV days.
There’s The Secret Garden, Time Machine, or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for example. I can count 23 titles on my iPad.
How to get free books from Apple
Easy. Just open your Apple Books app in your iPhone, iPad or Mac, and you will see it right at the top of the Book Store section, under a Feature Collection called “Free books for everyone, from kids to adults”.
Click that, start browsing, and just click “Get” on any of them if you are interested. You will not be charged.
Kudos to Apple for doing this amidst this trying crisis. Hopefully Amazon and Google will follow its example.
