Family ebookshelf

Graphic tile with three book covers: Remarkable Remy, Mallee Boys, and Polly and Buster

Foster a lifelong love of stories and storytelling in children of all ages with our family-friendly ebookshelf!

The Library has a huge range of free ebooks – 200,000 and counting! – which you can either read online or download for up to seven days.

To get started, browse our latest selection of ebooks suited to children aged 12 and under. You can also scan our monthly curated ebookshelf for some reading of your own, or browse for even more free ebooks!

For tips and advice, read our get started guide or watch our video on using ebooks.

To access ebooks from home, you need to be a State Library member with a Victorian home address. (Terms and conditions of use apply.)

Anzac Ted

Kookoo Kookaburra

Polly and Buster: The Wayward Witch and the Feelings Matter

Mallee Boys

Charlie Archbold

Mile End, South Australia, Australia: Wakefield Press, 2017

"Sometimes I feel like I'm neither one thing nor another. I live in the Mallee, but I don't like the desert. I live on a farm, but I get hay fever, and I'm scared of goats. I like school but my best mates don't. I'm stuck between stuff. It's like I'm not meant to be here but I am."

Sandy Douglas knows that life at fifteen is hard, but it's even harder when your mother died a year ago and nothing's gone right since. His brother Red, on the other hand, is eighteen now and working the farm. He's amped up on rage and always looking for a fight. And then there's their dad Tom. He does his best, but – really – he doesn't have a clue.

As Sandy and Red deal with girls, dirt biking, footy and friendship, both boys have to work out who they want to be, without their mum around. The Mallee, where they live, may seem like the middle of nowhere, but it turns out this is going to be one hell of a year.

Winner of the 2016 Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award.

Recommended for 14+ years old.

The Big Split

Choose Your Own Ever After: Play the Game

Nova Weetman

Richmond, Victoria, Australia: Hardie Grant Egmont, 2014

A contemporary pick-a-path series about life, first crushes and friendship, that lets the reader choose how the story goes!

Edie Thomas is a natural at netball. She plays for fun – and to hang out with her sports-mad bestie, Tess. But when Edie makes the state team, it looks like netball will be taking centre stage.

Until …

1. Edie drops out of the team when she scores a lead role in Romeo and Juliet opposite her long-time crush, Freddy. But will the school play be all that Edie dreams it will be? And will Tess ever forgive her for dumping netball?

2. Edie begins to resent netball taking over her entire life. Can a cute distraction, in the shape of footballer hottie Finn, rekindle her passion for sport? Or will she quit netball for good?

Follow your heart right to the end, or go back and choose all over again.

Recommended for 12+ years old

1111 Amazing Facts about Animals

Jack Goldstein

Luton, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom: Andrews UK, 2015

Did you know that in medieval times dogs were known to have accompanied their master’s into battle wearing suits of armour? Or that cows from different regions moo in different accents? Were you aware that the courtship dance of some seahorses can last eight hours? Or that an albatross flies much further in a lifetime than the Apollo astronauts did on their moon missions?

This fantastic book contains over one thousand facts about a wide range of animals, including dinosaurs, dogs, lizards, insects, sharks, cats, birds, horses, snakes, spiders and fish. So, if you want to know what the wagometer was invented for, which fish the Romans used as a recreational drug or what the offspring of a donkey and a zebra is called, then this is the book for you!

Recommended for 9+ years old