It’s that wonderful time of year! No, not Christmas. It’s back to school! Woohoo!!! And while it can be bittersweet to see your young ones off to school again, we all want them to succeed. As such, below is a handpicked list of our favorite free Books aimed at helping kids strive in school. And hopefully having fun while doing so.
This list is also up-to-date with the required readings for high school and college!
As Nelson Mandela says, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Michael | Educational
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Authored by a former university educator and researcher, this free eBook provides students and their parents with learning strategies that will lead toward success in school. Also includes a discussion about the true nature of intelligence, an examination of the myths about IQ, and a look behind the myth of learning styles.
B. K. Narayan | Parenting/Children
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Smart and easy ways to help your child build his/her self-confidence, excel in school, and achieve maximum success while being protected from stress, depression, and root causes for failure.
U.S. Department of Education | Academic Articles
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Step-by-step advice on how to choose among the schools available to your child. Identifies important factors you may want to consider before making a decision.
K5learning | Parenting/Children
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This book provides practical advice and specific activities parents can use to help their kids excel in school. It is aimed at parents of children in elementary school. We believe – and research shows – that a child’s success in school is often defined at a very early age. We wrote this book to encourage and help parents to be pro-active in getting their kids off on the right foot.
William Holley | Fiction
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Study break #1 - Enjoy this spooky tale; the first book in the popular Wychetts series (others available free here too).
Amy Wells | Marketplace
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It's no secret that getting into a good private school will give you the best chance of getting into the top colleges afterwards. This report will help your child get an edge in this very competitive world that we live in today. With this information, your child will have the best chance of passing the SSAT and ISEE and getting into the private school of their choice
U.S. Department of Education | Teacher's Resources
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Improving persistently low-performing schools is a core goal of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. As a result, policymakers have sought ways to address the increasingly large numbers of schools identified as low-performing.
Jeffrey A. Zilahy | Science
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ThiseBook is ideal for students who need a little push to get motivated, and is also great for scientists and those in the math community who like to stay abreast on relevant and current topics. Perfect as supportive text to any science course or class.
U.S. Department of Education | Parenting/Children
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15 fun activities to do with your children (ages 5-11) to help expand their imagination, obey, organize, help others, and much more.
Grey Gheist | Fiction
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Study break #2 - No this is not a real guide but rather a work of fiction possibly all too familiar for many of us!
U.S. Department of Education | Teacher's Resources
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Provides information to help parents, elementary school educators, as well as school and district administrators develop and implement effective prevention and intervention strategies that promote positive student behavior.
| Parenting/Children
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Discover how much fun you can have while helping your children learn math!
U.S. Department of Education | Parenting/Children
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Help children gain the skills they need to become good readers. Here are ways to turn everyday activities into learning experiences for infants to 6-year old children.
Samuel Ufot Ekekere | Parenting/Children
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That little teen sitting at the corner of your home has the potential to be a millionaire. You can help him find that millionaire within by reading this book.
Adam Deverell | Youth
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Study break #3 - With over 125,000 downloads and a 4.6-star reader rating, A Call from the Dark reigns as our most popular Youth book. Enjoy a (hopefully) well deserved break!
William Shakespeare | Drama Classics
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The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (first published 1597) is a play by William Shakespeare concerning the fate of two young star-crossed lovers. Perhaps the most famous of his plays, it is one of his earliest theatrical triumphs and is considered the archetypal love story of the Renaissance.
Joseph Conrad | Fiction Classics
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Captain Charles Marlow describes his experience transporting ivory along the Congo River in Africa where he encounters many instances of ruin and destruction.
William Golding | Fiction Classics
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The Classic book Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Matthieu Giroux | Economics (Academic)
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Kids want to understand society very early, when they see their parents talking about. The economy consists to understand the society's movements, to improve this society. We give the opportunity to middle school's children to understand real economy, which supports agriculture and industries.The economy is physical. It depends on scientific discoveries. So everyone can or could get better in better quantities, with less effort. We are only transforming our creative world because it has created life. We rise up like creative beings, in order to improve our society.It is possible that society's growth, created thanks to our creativity, could go to the infinite if we abandon the greed of money, thanks to a scientific and philosophical reflection wanted by Plato.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald | Fiction Classics
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In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new, something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It
L. Frank Baum | Children's Classics
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The story of Dorothy and her dog, Toto, who are swept off the Kansas plains by a huge cyclone, and find themselves in the land of Oz. With color illustrations by Michael Foreman.
Frances Hodgson Burnett | Children's Classics
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After the death of her parents, Mary is sent live in her uncle's great lonely house on the Moors where she discovers the key to a Secret Garden.
Margery Williams Bianco | Children's Classics
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The classic book, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams Bianco.
Fyodor Dostoevsky | Fiction Classics
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Raskolnikov kills two people in the belief that some people are "extraordinary" and have the right to kill others in order to improve the state of the world.
Frederick Douglass | Biography
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Autobiographical novel by abolitionist, author, and reformer Frederick Douglass. One of America's most prominent figures in African-American and United States history, Douglass' autobiography historically has been used for teaching the concepts of freedom and social development.
Louisa May Alcott | Children's Classics
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The March sisters, Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth, survive poverty and the absence of their father during the Civil War.
Jane Austen | Romance Classics
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The beautiful, young Elizabeth falls in love with Mr. Darcy, but he must control his pride while she tries to overcome her prejudice.
John Steinbeck | Fiction Classics
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The Classic book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. It tells the story of 2 poor ranch workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who try to find work wherever they can during the great depression. The 2 couldn’t be more different. George is small and sharp, while Lennie is a giant of a man, but has a very simple mind. Having nothing but each other, the pair must survive together in this harsh landscape.
William Shakespeare | Drama Classics
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After Hamlet's father is killed by his brother, Claudius, Hamlet struggles with his vow to seek revenge by murdering Claudius.
Abhishek | Fiction Classics
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Macbeth - A play by William Shakespeare, summarized just in 10 pages.
Homer. | Humanities and Arts
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The Odyssey (Ancient Greek: Ὀδύσσεια, Odysseia) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature. It was probably composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.[1] The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War.[2] In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, ...
Dave Mckay | Youth
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were first printed in 1884, eight years after Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It starts up where the other story finished, and the two books together are believed to be the best that Mark Twain ever wrote. Huck travels down the Mississippi on a raft, facing many dangers on the way and learning about life and what it means to be a friend. There are truths that Twain tries to get people to think about through this book. One is to make us laugh at some of the crazy things that we believe without any good reason to believe them; and the other is to make us question the way that people thought about slaves at the time of the story, in America in the 1850s.This classic novel has been re-written in simple English by Dave Mckay.
Nathaniel Hawthorne | Fiction Classics
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In early colonial Massachusetts, a young woman experiences the results of adultery and must spend the remainder of her life atoning for her sins.
Charles Dickens | Fiction Classics
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This novel follows the lives of three peasants who are degraded and subdued by the French aristocracy.
Emily Bronte | Fiction Classics
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A servant in the house at Wuthering Heights reveals the historic story of the love affair between Catherine and Heathcliff to a visitor who is currently staying there.
Leo Tolstoy | Fiction Classics
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The lives of Russian aristocrats become intertwined between the years 1805 and 1812 and during Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
Charlotte Bronte | Romance Classics
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A poor, abused orphan named Jane uses her cleverness and perseverance to win the love of the man she loves.
Arthur Miller | Drama Classics
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The Classic book The Crucible by Arthur Miller. This play uses the Salem witch trials, as comparisons to the McCarthy government which “hunted” down suspect communists in the USA. Miller himself was even questioned and convicted under similar circumstances.
William Shakespeare | Poetry Classics
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The Classic book Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. And while named after the famous emperor, this play actually centers around the character of Brutus and his clash for honour, patriotism and friendships. Along with Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra, this is one of 3 plays Shakespeare has based on real Roman history.
Charles Dickens | Fiction Classics
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Pip is a poor orphan who grows up in England in the early 1800's. He endures many hardships including poverty and violence.
Mary Shelley | Sci-Fi Classics
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A scientist creates a monster with pieces of corpses, but the monster develops a mind of his own begins to despise his creator.
William Shakespeare | Drama Classics
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A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, written around 1594 to 1596. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, and with the fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.
Geoffrey Chaucer | Poetry Classics
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A group of pilgrims embark on a long journey, and each of the characters reflect the irony and criticism of the church at the time.
William Shakespeare. | Drama Classics
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I n the English countryside, a poor tinker named Christopher Sly becomes the target of a prank by a local lord. Finding Sly drunk out of his wits in front of an alehouse, the lord has his men take Sly to his manor, dress him in his finery, and treat him as a lord. When Sly recovers, the men tell him that he is a lord and that he only believes himself to be a tinker because he has been insane for the past several years. Waking in the lord’s bed, Sly at first refuses to accept the men’s story, but when he hears of his “wife,” a pageboy dressed in women’s clothing, he readily agrees that he is the lord they purport him to be. Sly wants to be left alone with his wife, but the servants tell him that a troupe of actors has arrived to present a play for him. The play that Sly watches ma...
Mark Twain | Children's Classics
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Set on a 19th century Mississippi town, Tom Sawyer is a mischievous boy who skips school, witnesses to a crime, hunts for pirate treasure, and gets lost in a cave.
Herman Melville | Fiction Classics
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Captain Ahab's is fueled by his desire to kill the great white whale that tore off his leg leads, but his attempts lead to disaster.
William Shakespeare | Drama Classics
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The Classic book King Lear by William Shakespeare. In this tragedy, the aging King Lear, takes counsel from his 3 daughters. Two are flattering and manipulative liars. One is honest. Unfortunately, the King falls for the flattery resulting in dire consequences.
Charles Dickens | Fiction Classics
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Oliver escapes from a miserable workhouse where he's spent his childhood, travels to London, and befriends Artful Dodger, Fagin, and their group of thieves.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | Fiction
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Excellent classic! Download it today!
Herman Hesse | Religion
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A young man's adventures in a Jungian world by one of his most famous analysands. A spiritual masterpiece.
Victor Hugo | Fiction Classics
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Ex-convict Jean-Valjean struggles to find redemption after his release for a 19 year prison sentence for stealing food for his starving family.
Jonathan Swift | Sci-Fi Classics
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During his travels, an Englishman encounters tiny people, giants, sorcerers, and horses who control humans.
Jonathan Swift | Short Stories Classics
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The classic book, A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift.
William Shakespeare | Drama Classics
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The Classic book The Tempest by William Shakespeare. One of the Bard’s last plays, it is mostly set on a deserted island where the crew of a shipwreck find themselves stranded after a large storm. There they encounter a wizard, Prospero, monsters, spirits and more. While listed as a comedy it includes plenty of drama
Franz Kafka | Short Stories Classics
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The Classic book The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. First published in 1915 this novella is widely considered one of the most important short stories of the century and one of Kafka’s best. Gregor Samsa awakes one day only to find out he’s now a huge insect. The story follows as Gregor struggles to adjust this transformation. Many different interpretations of this story has created lots of exciting discussions over the years.
Edgar Allan Poe | Short Stories Classics
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"The Raven" is a narrative poem by the American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe. It was published for the first time on January 29, 1845, in the New York Evening Mirror. Noted for its musicality, stylized language and supernatural atmosphere, it tells of the mysterious visit of a talking raven to a distraught lover, tracing his slow descent into madness.
George Bernard Shaw | Drama Classics
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Based on the classical myth, Pygmalion plays on the complex web of human relationships in a social world. Download it now!
Sophocles | Drama Classics
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Antigone disobeys the royal edict and buries the corpses of her brothers since she believes honoring her family is more important than following the laws.
Virgil | Poetry Classics
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The Classic book The Aeneid by Virgil. Initially written in Latin, this poem is over 300 pages long. In this Epic, the hero Aeneas, a Tojan, travels to Italy where he starts the Roman civilization.
