We are unabashed book lovers. This home is FILLED with books of every sort. And we are approaching our homeschooling situation with a sort of mash-up of literature-based, classical, and Charlotte Mason learning. (I love a good homeschool book list!) That means we
READ.
A. LOT.
While I will never leave my first love (in regards to reading): physical books; I have discovered a secret book source. And it is ROCKING my world lately.
You see, with 4 kids in our house (all under the age of 7), I read a lot of books. Check out some of our favorite books here. The books we read just aren’t always books for me. I read picture books, chapter books, living books.
Books, books, books.
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BUT I rarely read books for ME!! It is just too difficult to nurse a baby whilst reading a physical book. And I had not really gotten on the e-book train. Until a month and a half ago….
And then…
I read SIX books in the past month!
This is HUGE for me! HUGE!
Life is better when I am a reader.
I feel smarter. I feel accomplished.
They won me over because it was perfect for me, a busy mom of four.
But then I started thinking my kids could benefit from this, too! After I found my secret book source, I started preparing for our upcoming school year. I like to check out homeschool book lists like the ones found at Ambleside Online and our Bridge Cycle One in my planning. And I found SO many of the books on my wish list.
That is what turned my secret book source into my secret homeschool book source!! It is so wonderful, we have already started listening to some of the audio books I found.
What makes my secret homeschool book source so wonderful is:
It includes both e-books and audiobooks!
I am a recent convert to the joy of listening to podcasts whilst doing the household duties in my day. I have switched my late-night binge-watch into a late-night binge-listen because of podcasts. But I was reluctant to transition to audiobooks because we already have an Amazon Prime subscription, a Netflix subscription, a Hulu subscription, and a Spotify Premium Family subscription. Oh, and we have Sirius in the car.
I wasn’t willing to add an Audible subscription to the mix, just to be able to listen to audiobooks. And I only purchase e-books when I am desperate to read a book (right now) or when they are FREE! My secret book source solves that problem for me by providing the best of both audio and e-books!!
We are a read-aloud family (that book, The Read-Aloud Family, is available there, too!). But we are busy, too. It is so nice to be able to put on an audiobook for my kids to listen to while I am feeding the baby or reading to our toddler in another room. We are still accomplishing our homeschool book list reading, but I am not always the one that has to read.
And I am so excited to be able to put a wireless speaker in the girls’ room to read to them at night and rest time! Good literature will surround them where ever they go in our house!
It has a FREE trial period
Yes, I know almost every subscription media service has a free trial period. But if I had not gotten a free trial for Scribd (oops, I just shared the secret!), I would have never tried it. And I would have missed out…BIG TIME!
I read all of the books I read in the past month through Scribd. Well, I didn’t read all of them. I listened to some of them (notably current bestseller, and utterly listenable: I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamera – I just checked the price on Amazon for the audiobook: $28 bucks!!)
During my free trial, I have racked up a total book bill of over a hundred dollars (!!!) for FREE!
The typical FREE trial period for Scribd is 2 months! I think that is more than enough time to try it out and see if you like it. While you are in your FREE trial, you may actually be able to increase the FREE trial. I extended my trial period from 3 to 4 months because I didn’t sign into the desktop website for a while. When I signed in they said they missed me and offered an extra month. Your mileage may vary on that one, but 2 MONTHS is not bad!
The Library is VAST!
Almost every author I have tried to look up has books in here – either audio or e-books. I found books on the current bestseller list, books from my TBR pile, classics, and TONS of classics. Those are just the books I want to read.
Plus, as I am preparing for the year ahead, I have been able to source (included in my subscription) these homeschool book choices:
Ambleside Online Year 2 books (not exhaustive)
An Island Story (AO) audio and illustrated e-book versions
The Little Duke (AO) audio and e-book versions
The Burgess Animal Book for Children (AO) audio and e-book versions
Shakespeare selections (AO) audio and e-book versions
Understood Betsy (AO) audio and illustrated e-book versions
The Poetry of Walter de la Mare (AO) e-book version
The Poetry of Christina Rossetti (AO) audio and e-book versions
Parables from Nature (AO) audio and e-book versions
The Poetry of James Whitcomb Riley (AO) e-book version
Pilgrim’s Progress (AO) audio and e-book versions
Howard Pyle’s Adventures of Robin Hood (AO) audio and e-book versions
Tanglewood Tales (AO) audio and e-book versions
Little House series (AO) audio and e-book versions
The Bridge Cycle One booklist
Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick – e-book
Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley – audio and e-book versions
The Children’s Homer by Padraic Colum – audio and e-book versions
The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare – e-book version
Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch – audio and e-book versions
On the Shores of the Great Sea by M.B. Synge – audio version
Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt by James Bailkie – audio and e-book versions
The Story of the Greeks by H.A. Guerber – audio and e-book versions
The Story of the Romans by H.A. Guerber – audio version
The Price is TINY!
The price $9.99 per month! That includes unlimited (!) e-books, audiobooks, and magazines. The alternative closest to Scribd is Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, which is $4.99 a month for the first year, then $9.95 monthly thereafter. And Audible is $14.95 a month for audiobooks. For my money and my time, my secret homeschool book source is WORTH it!!
What’s more is they offer you a discount if you purchase an entire year’s subscription at one time. Yes, please!
I am SO thankful I found this little gem. So much so that I just had to share it with you.
