While New York Public Library physical locations remain closed because of the COVID-19 crisis, our digital collection is still accessible to patrons everywhere, including children. As schools pivot to digital learning, parents and teachers may make use of educational resources—like Tumblebooks (simultaneous use e-books), Scienceflix (articles, videos, and projects related to different science topics), Bookflix (animated read-along books), and Brainfuse (one-on-one tutoring)—can and should be used in the classroom and at-home research.

It’s also important to remember that many kids like to learn on their own, and reading driven by interest—in any topic—is likely to build long-term interest in reading.

That includes books at all reading levels about dinosaurs, ninjas, princesses, Marvel characters, LEGOs, slime, pirates, soccer records, ghosts, trains, aliens, cats, and anything else. 

NYPL’s collection in Overdrive  is extensive and includes e-books and e-audiobooks about all of these things, for when you’ve run out of books at home. 

Books borrowed via Overdrive can be accessed either from your internet browser on a home computer or mobile devices using the SimplyE or Libby apps. New York State residents who do not currently have an NYPL card can request a digital one using SimplyE and check out titles immediately. 

So how do you find children’s books on topics kids want to read about?

Searching for Kids Books on Overdrive

On Overdrive, it’s easy to search specifically for children’s titles: click “kids” on the front page, and any search made will show only childrens titles until you navigate back to the main collection.

If you type in a word and search, the way you would on a search engine like Google, you are searching by keyword. Below is an example  Overdrive search using the keyword “dinosaurs”; it brings up all books with “dinosaurs” in the title or descriptive copy.

If a keyword search doesn’t bring up everything you are looking for, you can try using other related keyword. For example, instead of “dinosaurs,” you might try “paleontology” or “prehistoric animals”.

Playing with keywords like this is often how librarians locate titles in our digital catalog, and it is a good way to search. However, there are additional ways to make your search more precise or effective for certain purposes. The first thing to get acquainted with is the Advanced Search Bar on Overdrive.

style="text-align:center">

Clicking on “advanced”  under “search” will lead you to a menu of options that will help narrow your search. An important field you can use to find books is subject. If you select a subject, it will bring up all titles filed under that subject.

There aren’t precise subject categories for everything (ie, dinosaurs). Subject categories are big and broad: if you’re looking for comics, searching for the subject “comic and graphic books” will bring up all comics and graphic novels for kids—and all fiction and nonfiction related to comics (such as books about Marvel characters). However, the subject tool can be a great way of finding topics you want.

You can also use subjects to narrow down a search you initially do by keyword. For example, if you search for the keyword “monsters”, the search returns a variety of different books related to monsters: novels about monsters, joke books about monsters, stories of monsters in folklore...

You can use the subcategory “subject” on the left-hand side of the page to narrow your keyword search to types of books you’re interested in.

How Do I Tell if the Book is Good?

There’s no sure way to evaluate a title before reading it, but many e-books will have reviews available on Overdrive from professional publications like School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly or Kirkus Reviews. These reviews may detail how reliable or accurate a nonfiction book is, and describe things like layout and illustrations.

You can also preview some books before checking them out by clicking “read a sample”:

How Do I Find Books at a Particular Reading Level/For a Particular Age?

Reading levels aren’t always useful—children at “lower” reading levels may be compelled to read higher level books with interesting or attractive images, and children at higher reading levels may be interested in “lower” level books because there is content they like. However, on Overdrive, you can easily search by grade level, ATOS and lexile level to find books that match a child’s approximate reading level.

You can also search by interest level, which may help find titles with themes that interest particular ages (regardless of reading level).

Most books in our digital collection will be for readers in grades 1-8, since beginning readers often prefer to explore physical books (during ordinary times). However, we have some titles for every interest level. You can also recommend titles not yet in our digital library, either through Overdrive or on our website.

It’s time to get searching!

Download and learn more about SimplyE—NYPL’s e-reader app to access e-books and audiobooks—all for free.