Do you love leaping into strange new worlds with just a glimpse at words on a page? Then read on…

As I said in a previous post, a lot of children in the UK report not owning a single book. Whilst I love an old-fashioned physical book, sometimes the digital equivalent can offer space-saving and cost-reducing components.

The average ebook tends to be considerably cheaper than its paper equivalent. In fact, many classic books which have fallen into the public domain are actually entirely free to download to your device. (Are the classics more important than contemporary fiction? Pop over here to join in the debate). Whether you have a Kindle e-reader or not you can read any book in Amazon’s digital Kindle book catalogue.

Basically, if you have the equipment to view this blog post, you have the equipment to read a kindle e-book.

I’m not the biggest fan of every aspect of Amazon but their Kindle library is one thing that they’ve done remarkably well.

Don’t have a Kindle e-reader?

If you don’t have a kindle it’s no problem. So long as you have something that can run the kindle reader app (click on the link for a list of devices and how to use the app on them) then you can get hold of any book in their library.

Just the classics?

As I say, many classic works are free to read already but on top of this, you can also read thousands of contemporary books for free as well using a Kindle Unlimited membership.

They currently offer a free trial for two months so you can see if you like their service. After that, your membership would cost just £7.99 per month and you can cancel any time you like.

That doesn’t make sense, how do the Authors and Publishers make money if I read the book for free?

Kindle Unlimited doesn’t pay the Author the same as a digital purchase but it will pay them a small percentage of the pool of all Unlimited membership fees, depending on how many pages someone reads from your book.

For example (with a shameless self-plug for my books) all of my books are on Kindle Unlimited. (You’ll find proper descriptions of these at the bottom of this post).

Both of my main children’s fantasy books (‘Jack Reusen and the…’, for 6 and up) are available on Kindle Unlimited. Here are the links for Amazon UK for ‘…Fey Flame‘ and for ‘…Spark of Dreams‘. On top of this, you can also find a short Christmas story I wrote a few years back, as well as my dark fantasy book (10-12+) ‘Marcus‘ (set in and around the old abandoned Victorian school in my home town of Crieff).

These are all available to read for free (even as part of your free trial) with Kindle Unlimited. I get a fraction of a pence for every page of one of my books which is read. This definitely adds up and is 100% better than if someone didn’t buy any of my books at all. What’s more, it’s always good to know that people are reading (and hopefully enjoying) my books.

If you’re in the USA, Kindle Unlimited has a similar free trial and you can find all of my books on my Amazon Author page.

A Few Fantastic FREE Books to get you started

Some real favourites of mine which appear to still be available to read as part of your Kindle Unlimited membership are (Click the images below for the links):

ALL of the Harry Potter books: I don’t really need to describe these do I? World-famous fantasy books about a boy wizard and his adventures at a secret wizarding school.

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Skulduggery Pleasant (by Derek Landy): These books are phenomenal. A bit grittier and more violent that Harry Potter (Landy is a black belt and a screenwriter so his action scenes are superb, yet intense). NOT for younger readers. As far as I can see you can read the whole series FREE on Kindle Unlimited.

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The Lord of the Rings series by J R R Tolkien: An absolute classic and (probably) the core of most modern fantasy stories. An absolutely epic adventure. A famous Sunday Times quote is often cited about Lord of the Rings “‘The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and those who are going to read them.”

The Hobbit: OK, this is almost the same but it’s worth stating that there are a heap of digital editions of The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien but this is the only one I can see that is free on Kindle Unlimited. A total fantasy classic and suitable for a (slightly) younger audience than the Lord of the Rings books.

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The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: A very different story than the one put together by Disney but very much worth a look. It includes lessons on life and has a general fable-like quality that you don’t often see in modern fiction anymore. Another great book you can read for free on Kindle Unlimited.

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Jane Austen’s Complete novels, all in one book: These aren’t really for kids but they are some of my favourite books of all time. Austen is an absolute genius when it comes to dry wit and establishing character. Reading her works is an utter masterclass in writing characters and dialogue. I’m so happy to see her novels in one digital volume to read for free on Kindle Unlimited.

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You can also access an amazing collection of comic books and graphic novels for free with your Kindle Unlimited membership. My only warning would be that parents of younger children supervise what their child downloads.

Comic books and graphic novels may look like they are for kids but some are wildly inappropriate for younger ages so be sure to read the description before downloading to your app (or to your kindle).

It’s also worth noting that many actual Amazon Kindle devices can only display in greyscale so you may not be able to properly use colour copies this way.

And, of course, you can access my own books FREE too:

Once you’ve signed up to Kindle Unlimited, you’ll see that both of the Jack Reusen books come up as ‘free’, so you can read the whole adventure so far, for nothing.

‘Jack Reusen and The Fey Flame‘ introduces you to the land of Fey, as creatures (and other things) make their way through to the ‘matter-world’ (basically our world). Jack and his family have to discover a way of closing a collection of ‘breaches’ between the two worlds to make their world safe again.

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‘Jack Reusen and the Spark of Dreams‘ is a slightly different kind of adventure. People are losing their ability to dream. Every night more and more people lose the certain something that makes human beings so good at solving problems and creating things; the spark of dreams. Jack discovers that he could be the key to understanding what’s causing this change, and he may even be the only person who can solve it and bring back the dreams and imaginations of hundreds of people.

I hope that both of the Jack Reusen books give you and/or your kids something to enjoy as you read them. Let me know what you think.

I also hope that my other Kindle Unlimited reading hints are useful to you too. If you know of other great books available free through Kindle Unlimited please feel free to post them in the comments below.

As always, thanks for stopping by my site,

All the best, John