Tumble Books

We're very pleased to offer streaming e-books and audiobooks for children (and others). Nothing special is needed, just any sort of device that will connect to the Internet and has flash. PC, Mac or Linux.

The Tumblebook Library is a large picture book collection for kids, up through grade 4 plus, and their parents. You can find many of your favorite print friends here such as Biscuit and Scaredy Squirrel.

The Tumblebook Library collections come in three languages: Spanish, English and French. Look for the drop-down box in the upper right-hand corner to choose your interface language or, if you want to read/listen to a book in another language but retain the English interface, click on the language learning icon.

In addition to the story books and nonfiction titles, our version of the Tumblebook Library includes some chapter books and graphic novels for elementary school students. These are labeled "read-alongs" and have a different user interface.

Tumblebook features differ somewhat from book to book, but in general you will be able to turn audio on or off, turn pages automatically or manually, assemble your own collections of favorite books, write book reviews, search by author, subject area, and so on. For instructions, please watch this video. It is a bit long, but you will otherwise miss all the great hidden possibilities.

Hints:

When you select a book, it opens in a new tab.

If you want to retain the booklists your create, remember to protect your tumblebook cookies.

Games or puzzles accompany several books, so look for them and have fun.

No library card is needed. This is a present from the library Friends to all the children of Takoma Park (and their parents and teachers).

Our offerings for older kids and adults, Tumblereadables and the Audiobookcloud, will be introduced in subsequent posts.

From School Library Journal, June 2011, quoting Julie Hume, a reading specialist.

“The results are remarkable, she says. The students using Tumblebooks leapt ahead of their peers. Last November, three months after starting the project, the average fluency rate for the Tumblebook group was 23 percentage points higher than that of the control group. Students using the ebooks had moved from a Lexile level of K to M. By January, the entire group of children in the ebook program had achieved fluency to the point that they were ‘exited' from her pull-out sessions and integrated back into their regular classrooms. It took the control group two months longer. She credits the success to the ebooks' ability to narrate the story, while allowing students to feel like they're in control of what and when they read. ‘When students repeatedly have a strong model of fluency, the more they hear that, the better they get it', ”