Classic Children's Talking Books

It is a special experience to share a book with your child which you remember sharing with your own parents when you were young. Often the old classics really are the best! Many of these classics, such as 'Black Beauty', 'Treasure Island' or 'The Secret Garden' are in the public domain. This means that you can read or listen to them for free. Yes, that's right … free children's talking books!

My children and I love listening to children's talking books. We listen to them in the car, at meal times (when I can't get them to sit still any other way), before bed or when we just need some quiet time during the day.

I have already written about some of our favourite children's talking books here. Recently, however, we have started to listen to a number of the older classics, and we have benefited from being able to download these for free.

Librivox.org provides free audiobooks from the public domain in the USA, generally meaning the book was published before 1923. Readings are recorded by volunteers and can be downloaded for free. They have recordings of most of the classics. You can browse the Children's section of Books Should Be Free, which draws on these Librivox recordings and other public domain sources to deliver free audio books and e-books available for downloading in a straightforward way.

You can also access free children's talking books via the Free Audiobooks iPhone app so that you can download your favourite stories while on the go.

Below is a list of our favourite children's talking books which are available to download for free on the 'Books Should Be Free' website. I have included a link to the page for each book where you can download the audio recording or e-book. The books are divided into two sections - those for younger listeners over five-years-old and those for older listeners over eight-years-old.

These children's talking books have been recorded by volunteers rather than by professional actors, so the calibre of the recording may not be as high as a purchased recording. However, many of these volunteer readers are very good, and I have indicated with an asterix (*) those free recordings which are read particularly well.

For those wishing to purchase a professionally-recorded unabridged version of the book in CD format, I have also added a link for this when available.

Children's Talking Books for Over 5s

The Adventures of Maya the Bee by Waldemar Bonsels

The story of an adventurous bee who abandons her hive to explore the world, meeting a number of different insects along the way.
Download free recording

The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

A collection of over 30 fairy tales from around the world, including classics such as Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella.
Download free recording

The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins

The adventures of five-year-old twins, Kit and Kat, while helping out with the daily household chores on a Dutch farm.
Download free recording

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

The story of Mowgil, a "man cub" brought up by wolves in the jungles of India, together with other animal tales such as the mongoose, Rikki Tikki Tavi, and The White Seal.
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Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Twelve quirky and humorous short stories about animals to entrance you and your child.
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The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay

An enchanted, bad-tempered pudding called Albert has a magical group of friends who try to protect him from the pudding thieves.
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Children's Talking Books for Over 8s

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn runs away from his drunken father and, joining up with Jim, an escaping slave, flees down the Mississippi on a raft.
Download free recording*
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Warm-hearted Tom Sawyer is always getting into trouble but finds imaginative solutions to his problems. His adventures include witnessing a murder and running away from home to become a pirate.
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice falls down a rabbit hole and embarks on a series of weird and wonderful adventures in Wonderland.
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Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Anne Shirley is a talkative, endearing orphan who is sent to live with an elderly brother and sister on their farm. She soon wins them over along with most of the rest of the people in Avonlea.
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Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

The story of the life of Black Beauty, a well-born foal whose fortunes change when he becomes a painfully overworked cab horse in London.
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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The miserly Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to celebrate Christmas until the visits of three ghosts help him to change his ways.
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Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit

Five children dig up a grumpy sand fairy in a gravel pit who then agrees to grant them a wish a day. Badly chosen wishes create all sorts of problems and adventures for them.
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Just William by Richmal Crompton

A series of hilarious stories about the adventurous, imaginative and highly mischievous William Brown, who never fails to leave chaos in his wake.
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Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Cedric Errol, the son of an English aristocratic father, was brought up in America. On the death of his father he is set to inherit the family estate in England from his grumpy grandfather and is summoned to England to be educated in the ways of the aristocracy.
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A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Sarah Crewe, a kind and intelligent girl, is sent away to live in luxury at boarding school by her immensely rich father. On her father's death, however, his fortune disappears and she finds herself reduced to poverty and having to work at the school with no pay and little food.
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Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

A wooden puppet, Pinocchio, has an insatiable thirst for adventure which keeps getting him into trouble but helps to teach him valuable lessons.
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Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

The orphaned Pollyanna goes to live with her rich, bad-tempered Aunt Polly. Pollyanna's good nature and sunny disposition has a profound effect on all of those around her.
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The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

A poor boy living in squalor with his drunken father swaps places with the prince of England, the future Edward VI.
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The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

The fantasy tale of two children - a princess and a miner boy - who use their resourcefulness and the princess's magic ring to stop a goblin invasion.
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The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Bad-tempered, spoilt orphan Mary is sent to stay with her uncle in Yorkshire and becomes the unlikely companion of her sickly cousin, Colin. As she tends a neglected secret garden both the garden and the children begin to flourish.
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The Story of the Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit

Six children living in London in the nineteenth century try to resolve their family's financial difficulties by devising a series of money-making schemes, none of which go according to plan.
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The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

A survival tale of a Swiss family - father, mother and four sons - shipwrecked on a desert island for ten years.
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Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Alice's second adventure is in Looking-Glass Land, where she encounters Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee as well as Humpty-Dumpty.
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Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map and sails as a cabin boy aboard the Hispaniola to the Caribbean to claim it. However, a sinsiter band of pirates are unwittingly enlisted to crew the ship.
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The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley

In this children's talking book, an orphaned chimney sweep, Tom, escapes his brutal master when he falls into the river and becomes a "water baby" which is the start of his underwater adventures.
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Dorothy and her dog, Toto, are sucked up by a tornado and transported to the land of Oz. Joined by friends along the way, she sets out on a quest to find the Wizard of Oz hoping he can help her to return home.
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* Free recordings which are read particularly well