Unable to physically go to school, you might be finding it difficult to read during this pandemic. Without access to our school libraries, not having books to read at home can be one of the reasons why. The sites that are listed below have a lot of ebooks to read for free, so keep reading!
Open Library is a site that has millions of books available, in which people can create an account for free to borrow and read online. It is from the Internet Archive, which is a non profit organization where you can also find books. Signing up is a simple process that only requires an email address, a screen name, and a password. There are many genres to choose from, and some books also have audio and other languages available. There is also a student library section where you can find books for preschool to grade 6, as well as many reading levels.
https://books.google.com/googlebooks/about/free_books.html
Google Books has a wide range of ebooks, and more than 10 million of them are available to read for free. All you need is your google account, and you can download them to read on any personal device. Ebooks and other books that are priced are also available. Free books can also be accessed in Google Play, or Google Books as a separate app.
Wattpad is a site that can also be accessed as an application, where people can post, as well as read, original stories. Unlike the other sites on this list, these books are written by the users themselves; there are currently over 665 million books uploaded on Wattpad, though some of them have to be paid for or are not yet finished. There are a variety of genres to choose from, including adventure, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, humor, LGBTQ+, mystery, thriller, poetry, romance, science fiction, fanfiction, and nonfiction. The site also hosts contests for written pieces if you want to participate.
Project Gutenberg is a site that has over 66,000 ebooks that are free, and you do not need to create an account to access it. Clicking on a book leads you to a page with a list of formats that you can read from, as well as information about the book. There are different “bookshelves” on this site where you can find categories such as education, fiction, crime, and other, more specific categories like adventure. Some of the books are in different languages such as Italian, French, Spanish and German. Under each book you can also see the number of downloads, if you want to see how popular they are.
This site allows you to sign up for free to get access to more than 40,000 books. However, it requires a parent to sign up for you with an email and password, or a google/facebook account. Epic also can be accessed as an application, and is better suited for younger ages of 12 and under. It offers picture books, non-fiction books, audiobooks, graphic novels, and videos. The site is widely used in schools, and offers many books at different reading levels.
— Writer Jia Lee can be reached at jial26@rism.ac.th.
