National Accessible Library

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• Audible Stories (Currently free during lock down)

For as long as schools are closed, they are available free of charge. Starting today, kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across six different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids. All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet. Explore the collection, select a title and start listening. It’s that easy. https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

 

• Book Start which runs from Darlington and Cockerton Library at doing online story time while the Library is shut.

Monday 10am Story Time with Suzy and Big Ron. The videos appear on their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/bookstartindarlington

Friday 7pm Bedtime story with Suzy and Big Ron.

 

• List of Authors reading their books online

From an American website. https://www.weareteachers.com/virtual-author-activities/

 

• Living Paintings Sound Lounge

Each day Living Paintings are offering a fantastic track from our Living Paintings audio library. Whether you’re self-isolating, home-schooling during social distancing or simply need to unwind from a day at work, we’ve got something for everyone – of all ages. Tune into our selection of tracks for mindfulness and story time, nature trails and celebrity chat every day! You can also access the channel through our Facebook page.

 

• Calibre Audio (currently not accepting new members during lock down)

There is a collection for younger members which is crammed full of leading contemporary children’s authors, including Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson, J.K Rowling, Malorie Blackman, David Walliams, Phillip Pullman – as well as all the classics. We also keep up to date with titles that support the GCSE, A Level and PSHE national curriculum. Under 16s can also borrow audiobooks from the main collection, other than those with an X-rated restriction. Once you have become a member which is free, you can stream books directly from the website. https://www.calibreaudio.org.uk/join

The library is for people who are unable to enjoy reading a printed book because they are blind, visually impaired, have print blindness due to dyslexia or are physically impaired.

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The books are available in a variety of formats, including Microsoft Word, plain text and Braille. The books in Microsoft Word format are marked up in order to make it as easy as possible to customise the book to suit the way you want to read them. The charity continues to add books to the library all the time, on every subject. Click the link to the library http://www.accessiblelibrary.org.uk/

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If the book is in Microsoft Word format, you can press control A to highlight all the text and change the text size if needed.