Reading
Libby, the library app
Kids borrow ebooks, audiobooks and read-along picture books from their local public library.
Libby, from OverDrive, brings a family’s public library onto a phone or tablet. With a library card, kids can browse the Kids and Teens collections and borrow ebooks, audiobooks and magazines. Little ones get picture books with read-along audio, while older kids can listen to chapter-book audiobooks in the car or read graphic novels and series on a tablet. Popular titles take holds, and a personal shelf gathers loans, holds and reading history in one spot. Books download for offline reading, and positions sync between devices, so a story begun on the tablet can carry on from the phone. U.S. libraries can send books to a Kindle as well. What turns up depends on each library’s own collection, so the shelves may look a little different from town to town.
- Ages
- Readers of every age with a library card
- Works on
- iPhone and iPad app; Android app; Amazon Fire app; Web browser
- Topics
- Reading
- Languages
- English
- Listed
- 2026-10-18
What kids do
- Borrow a library ebook or audiobook
- Listen to a read-along picture book
- Place a hold on a popular series
- Download a book for a trip
Who it suits
Readers of every age with a library card.
Notes for parents
Made by OverDrive and used by thousands of public libraries, with a library card as the way in. The read-along picture books look easy for pre-readers to follow.
What you need
- Public library card
- Phone, tablet or computer
More Reading
- Epic – Kids' Books & Reading: A digital library where children browse stories and nonfiction, listen to Read-To-Me books and audiobooks, and look up words with an audio dictionary.
- Reading.com: A parent and child go through scripted phonics lessons together, followed by decodable stories and practice games.
- Reading Eggs: Pre-reading, first reading, systematic phonics and later comprehension are split into separate programs aimed at different ages.
- Teach Your Monster to Read: Children design a monster and take it through games that match letters to sounds, blend words and read sentences.
- Hooked on Phonics Learning: Guided reading activities come with an ebook library meant to go alongside the lessons.
- Teach Monster: Reading for Fun: Recipes, signs and instructions are the reading material in a village adventure where helping characters earns books for a monster’s shelf.
- Vooks: Animated storybooks with narration, where each word is highlighted as it is read aloud.
- Endless Reader: Animated words are built letter by letter, dropped into short sentence puzzles and then acted out in a little scene.