Save and Conquer

I have written before about all the free books you can download and read at the Gutenberg Project. I recently found another great site for free books and reference material at the Internet Public Library.

I was looking for children’s stories to read to our son at bedtime. There are other good sites I have found with children’s stories. Places like East of the Web and International Children’s Digital Library have lots of great children’s classics as well as books I have never seen before. But as I say, I recently found the IPL and would like to highlight a few of the nice things there.

The IPL was started in 1995 by a single class at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. It is currently hosted by Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology with aid by a consortium of 11 different universities.

Subject Collections in the IPL are grouped as

• Arts & Humanities
• Business
• Computers
• Education
• Leisure
• Health
• Law & Government
• Regional
• Science
• Social Science

The Reading Room contains links to on-line magazines, books, and newspapers. The Reading Room Books section has links to East of the Web and the Gutenberg Project, as well as many other diverse sites, such as

• “Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts” – Resource providing links to mythology texts. Arranged alphabetically, users can browse everything from popular fairy tales to Russian ghost stories.
• “The Viking Age: Cormac’s Saga” – A 27 chapter saga originated in Iceland between 1200 and 1300 A.D. Download it or read it online.
• “World Wide School Library” – World Wide School is “dedicated to the collection, preservation and presentation of educational material.” The library contains over 2,000 online texts organized by subject, author, title, and genre. Each text is accompanied with helpful notes.

There are two sections in the IPL dedicated to young people. One is titled, KidSpace and the other, TeenSpace. KidSpace is awesome. It has features titled

• Science Fair
• Stately Knowledge
• Learning HTML
• Orca Search
• Poison Prevention
• Author Page
• Culture Quest
• Story Hour
• Say Hello
• U.S. Presidents

Each one of these links to other pages that have other headings. For example, the Science Fair page has subjects the include

• Reference
• The World
• Computers
• Health & Nutrition
• Reading Zone
• Math & Science
• Art & Music
• Sports & Rec.
• Fun Stuff

Under Math & Science there are many, many links to some great eye-catching sites. The first 4 resource links on this page are:

• “42Explore: Thematic Pathfinders for All Ages” – Stop by this eye-catching website to discover pathfinders and links on everything from sled-dog racing to chocolate to calligraphy. Pick a subject, read the pathfinder, and follow the links!
• “All Info-About – Science for Families” – Find fun science articles and experiments, plus links to great science sites on the Internet.
• “Bill Nye the Science Guy’s Nye Labs Online” – Bill Nye the Science Guy makes learning about science fun, and shows you neat science experiments you can try at home.
• “Black Hole Gang” – Explore lots of science topics from the rain forest to the Periodic Table of the Elements to microscopes. You click on different characters and follow the hidden links to information about all kinds of science. Teachers can also find resources at this site.

Clicking on Short Stories under Reading Zone on the KidSpace page takes you to a page with 17 major site links. One of which is the International Children’s Digital Library that I mentioned above. The first 4 links on the Short Stories page are

• “The Amazing Adventure Series” – Read about or listen to “June the Prune” and “Blossom’s Tale”. Afterwards, do some fun activities based on the stories.
• “Book-Pop” – You will love this site! Stephen Cosgrove has written many books and stories for the Web. You can read the books yourself, or hear them read to you! Read about Fiddler Bear and how he helped the Hideaway Bears or listen to a story about catching The Giggle-Snitcher. You can listen to songs and print out coloring pages of your favorite Book-Pop characters too!
• “Chunky Monkey’s Rain Forest Friends” – Read tales about life in the rain forest by Pauline Comanor, the famous Cartoonist.
• “Farmhouse Fables” – “These stories are about all the many little creatures that have made their homes in the meadow that lies next to the Old Farmhouse.” You can even e-mail your favourite Farmhouse Fables Character.

On a whim, I clicked on the Farmhouse Fables and saw that they are original stories by a man in the U.K. From the site:

Children’s stories and fables for the young at heart of all ages, all of them original, complete, and absolutely free; and none of them available anywhere else in the world except here. They do not depend on animated pictures, so you can print them off then read them anywhere you want: in bed, or curled up in an armchair, or on the bus, or wherever else is comfortable. There will be a new story from time to time; all of them are completely free, and there is nothing violent or cruel or nasty in any of them: that’s a promise.

These stories are great! Our 7 year old loves them. There are only 6 full stores for kids. They are

1. The Sad Nettle and The Beautiful Butterfly
2. Jonathan, the Fastest Snail in the Meadow
3. Millie the The Harvest Mouse
4. Matilda Finds a New Home
5. Andy and The Beetles Rescue Jonathan

From the titles, we had to read “Jonathan, the Fastest Snail in the Meadow” first, followed by “Andy and The Beetles Rescue Jonathan.” We have two more stories to go. Last night, our son came straight up and said, “Daddy, will you please read a farm story?” After reading “Millie the The Harvest Mouse,” he said that he really liked Jonathan (who was also in the Millie story). I have emailed the author to say how much our son and I like his work.

Anyway, if you have kids or even if you don’t, I wholeheartedly recommend the Internet Public Library. I guarantee you will find something there to pique your interest. And of course, it is free!

Stumble it!