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[Irish_Moss]

Anyone know a decent source for ebooks?  Hopefully with a few free samples?
The olpc wiki page http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Free_books yields a lot of links (too many in fact), but I still haven't found a simple resource for downloadable children's ebooks (in a xo compatible format).

I'd like to try out the ebook functionality, and see if my son will be interested in using the xo in such a fashion, before I go ahead and buy/subscribe to anything.
 

[Karl L.]

Try {CORRECTED URL}www.manybooks.net.  It has gutenberg.org texts, sorted by topics-- like young readers.  It will also format the text into a variety of filetypes.

I downloaded Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and a few other classics.

Karl

[Irish_Moss]

Try www.manybooks.org.  It has gutenberg.org texts, sorted by topics-- like young readers.  It will also format the text into a variety of filetypes.

I downloaded Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and a few other classics.

Karl

Are you sure about that url?  www.manybooks.org just goes to one of those generic domain-squatting link pages.

[Fricka]

http://books.google.com/

Has some books in PDF format (mainly ones in the public domain)

[Karl L.]

Sorry -- I meant manybooks.net.   

 Here is the proper link for children's books:  http://manybooks.net/categories/CHI

Karl

[Irish_Moss]

Thanks Karl.

Now I just have to find some titles suitable for a 5 year old...

[Maddie]

Try your local (online) public library.

This one's in  Maryland:  http://bcplonline.org/centers/library/wob_ebooks.html

[Gollumer]

Daniel Keys Moran has begun releasing some of his works free on the web via PDF (the RTF takes forever to open on the OLPC and won't format properly when the screen is rotated to vertical format.

I recommend "The Long Run" as a Must read.

http://immunitysec.com/resources-dkm.shtml

[doccalamity]

This is the ultimate place for online e-books, project Gutenberg. Books whos copyright has expired are posted here. They are posted in plain text so you don't need anything special to read them.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

[Irish_Moss]

I've checked out the Gutenberg project.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything for young children (5-7 year olds)
It seems that a majority of the texts are old... very, very old. 

All I'd really like to find are a couple ebooks for Caillou, or Dora the Explorer, or something like that.

[Bryan H]

What format works best with the ebook functionality on the XO?

[Irish_Moss]

What format works best with the ebook functionality on the XO?

Supposedly the "Read" activity works best with PDF.
Although the xo is supposed to support several formats: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ebooks

[AuntiMame]

Irish_Moss,
the only trouble with getting Dora (or similar) ebooks is that they are copyrighted material. there aren't any free online repositories for copyrighted books. you'd have to buy the PDFs from Amazon or some similar company.

Lots of "classic" works are available at www.gutenberg.org. Things like Aesop's Fables, Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy\The Secret Garden\A Little Princess, Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales, and I'm sure there are lots of others, too. These are obviously not "read by yourself" books if your child is under, say, age 8. But you can read together 

Aunti

[Karl L.]

Right now, OLPC Read (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Read) can only handle PDFs. 

You can view other types of files with Browse or Write.

Karl

[rkevans]

Not exactly designed for little kids, but Baen makes over 80 copyrighted science fiction / fantasy novels available for download.

It's the drug pusher sales strategy -- the first one's free, you'll come back for more if you like it...  I know it worked on me. 

http://www.baen.com/library/

Rick

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