Don’t stop at the cover. The full contents of picture books, novels, and more are now available online.

Nothing beats cuddling up with a good book. But when you’re looking to get your hands on the right title or want to do something more, like share a good book with a class or access full-text volumes from a vast collection, technology can help. Whether it’s a peek inside a book that you’re after or a good chat with like-minded bibliophiles, these digital tools could be a reader’s best friend.

Project Gutenberg

The largest collection of free electronic books for all ages, Project Gutenberg has a goal of making digital versions of public domain works freely available to anyone. Staffed by volunteers, the collection has three main sections: light literature (like Alice in Wonderland), heavy literature (like the Bible), and reference (like Roget’s Thesaurus). More than 25,000 titles are available in over 50 different languages and a variety of written and spoken versions, as well. Users can browse by title, author, language, or type, and there are a handful of search engines that can be used. Want your Gutenberg to go? Lexcycle offers applications for Windows Vista, Mac OS, and the iPhone that let you read books from Project Gutenberg, as well as other free online collections. The Stanza program, also by Lexcycle, exports books into the MobiPocket format, for reading on a Blackberry, PocketPC, or Palm OS devices.

Children’s Books Online

This site boasts the largest collection of illustrated antique books on the Web, and we think they might be right. Of course, you have to find the “library” link under the wheelbarrow image. But once in, you’ll find many titles indexed by age level, as well as a section for audiobooks and foreign-language volumes. Like Project Gutenberg, this site also relies on volunteers from around the world to digitize its books. We think the collection is a nice reading source, but there’s also some potential for sparking discussion here. Students can examine the illustrations, for example, and compare the artistic style and content from then and now. Take the ABC book N Is for Nosegay—who says nosegay anymore? Students could also discuss the cultural influences and origins behind these works. Supposedly, books can be downloaded as ZIP files, but we couldn’t get this feature to work. There’s also a link to pay for books that can be downloaded in a digital format, with proceeds going to help support the site. Children’s Books Online is a bit difficult to navigate, but if you can find the links and get past the scrolling issues, this can be an interesting path for discovering historical literature.

Big Universe

This picture book site is one of our favorites. Mostly geared for elementary and early middle school students, Big Universe offers 660-plus books colorful enough to capture any child’s imagination. The collection, comprised of fiction and nonfiction, is categorized by age level and theme. Looking for books about elections or maybe how the brain works? You’ll find ’em here. There’s also Weekly Reader and Time for Kids supplements, such as Using Math Outdoors,  What Is the Constitution?, and How Water Changes. But wait, there’s more! Not only can you read books, but you can add them to a personalized virtual bookshelf for later access. Users can also comment, recommend, or read what others think, and (fanfare) you can create your own books! That’s right, Big Universe takes it to the next level by allowing users to make picture books. A bank of images is available for this purpose, including cute animations and image collections based on a theme. A simple interface lets you upload your own images. Editing tools are fairly easy to use with a click-and-drag interface, including a storyboard view. Preview, publish, and print your title or save it for later editing. Over 2,000 books have been created, although only about 300 have been “published” for sharing. You must be 13 or older to sign up for an account, which is required to create books, but we think teachers and librarians could register an account that students can use. Oh, and did we mention that it’s free?

TumbleBooks

While we tend to gravitate toward the free stuff, sometimes it’s a matter of “you get what you pay for.” That’s the case with TumbleBooks, a subscription book source that lets you access popular titles by well-known authors, from the contemporary, including Peter Reynolds, Robert Munsch, and Pam Muñoz Ryan, to the classic, such as Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, and Anna Sewell. Books are available in both audio format and “video format” complete with beautifully animated illustrations displayed full screen with easy navigation. The narrations, all lively and engaging, are also available in Spanish and French. The books have been leveled and a link provides Accelerated Reader data when applicable. Many titles are expanded with additional text, reading comprehension quizzes, and vocabulary games. Pricing varies depending on the level of service you choose. For an in-depth review of TumbleBooks, see Shonda Brisco’s Digital Resources column "Ebooks (and More) for Young Readers" (October 2007).

Lookybook

Picture-book site Lookybook is primarily about helping users discover and purchase books by allowing them to peruse a text’s interior, read descriptions, and scan user comments. You can view the books in their entirety, but the size and clarity of the display lend themselves more to a buying decision and don’t make for a particularly enjoyable class viewing. What makes Lookybook interesting is that with a free log-in, users can create bookshelves to “store” their favorite titles. So if a title catches your eye, like Punctuation Takes a Vacation (Holiday House, 2003), you can see that it is available from three vendors and that there are three other titles by the same creators. Four users have left comments. If we click on the first commenter’s bookshelf, we’ll see what she likes to read and recommend, thereby discovering even more titles to enjoy. Another interesting feature: Lookybook’s sharing functions. You can embed a mini version of the book into your blog or Web page, along with your review. It’s next to impossible to actually read the book in this view, but this is certainly a nice touch beyond simply pasting in a link to the book’s cover. Quick links let you share a good read via Facebook, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Digg. We’ve only scratched the surface here, providing just a few of the most intriguing book resources online, most being free. (We usually stick with things that are of little or no cost—well aware that budgets are tight—but we were so taken with TumbleBooks that we had to give it a nod.) All give kids a chance to build their reading skills and discover new titles. Best of all are those sites that give students, teachers, and librarians a voice, providing a conduit for communicating with fellow readers. What’s a good book, after all, if you can’t share it?

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Anna Adam and Helen Mowers are both educators with the Killeen Independent School District in Texas and the creators of “Tech Chick Tips,” a podcast series.