Where to find public domain children's stories to record myself reading?
January 6, 2023 8:14 PM   Subscribe

My son is six and we listen to recordings of bedtime stories together on Spotify before he goes to sleep. I like reading bedtime stories to my son and would like to record myself reading some. However, my rudimentary knowledge of copyright law makes me think it's a bad idea to record just any stories. So, I'm wondering if there is a place where I can find children's stories that are in the public domain that I'd be able to record? Thanks!
posted by NoneOfTheAbove to Grab Bag (11 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you're not trying to sell them, or mass-distribute them for free, or something else that is stopping the author from making money the author would otherwise have made, then you can go ahead and record anything for your own use.
posted by Etrigan at 8:27 PM on January 6, 2023 [27 favorites]


If you're just playing the recording for your son, you have no copyright issues to worry about.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:27 PM on January 6, 2023 [8 favorites]


Assuming you are worried despite the advice above, I'd start by checking Project Gutenberg.
posted by xenization at 8:30 PM on January 6, 2023 [6 favorites]


Response by poster: Should have added: I was planning to post them on Spotify or something for others to listen to.
posted by NoneOfTheAbove at 8:33 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]


Project Gutenberg is a free eBook library with a focus on books whose US copyright has expired. It's been going for years and it's pretty amazing.

There's lots to look at but here's an example search result for the topic of Children's Stories.
posted by mochapickle at 8:33 PM on January 6, 2023 [8 favorites]


You might also enjoy browsing Librivox, which is a collection of volunteer-created audiobooks recorded from works in the public domain. If they can record it, so can you.

There's a similar search function by genre, title, author to find things your child might like.
posted by mochapickle at 8:37 PM on January 6, 2023 [9 favorites]


I don't have a helpful answer, but I wanted to say that this is a wonderful idea. I learned to read by watching my late mother read to me and following along, and she continued to read to me even through college when I was visiting home. There are so many of my favorite books that I hear in her voice when I read them, and one reason I don't really like audiobooks is because being read to by someone else is not the same. If I had a recording of her reading even one of our favorites, it would be a treasure beyond price.
posted by LadyOscar at 9:43 PM on January 6, 2023 [8 favorites]




> You might also enjoy browsing Librivox

If you're going to go to the bother of recording, you might consider recording for Librivox. They are doing exactly what you're doing - just a lot more of it. Their readers are all volunteers and you might get some decent distribution out of it.
posted by flug at 3:45 AM on January 7, 2023 [11 favorites]


No advice about specific stories, but my daughter and I do this for the later Betsy-Tacy books and she loves being a part of the recording. We sing the songs together or she occasionally asks me a question. less professional but still very fun and I imagine would be a treasure to listen to once kids are grown.
posted by chaiminda at 5:01 AM on January 7, 2023 [3 favorites]


If you are looking for recordings, Pinna could be one source. If you are looking to record out of copyright material, this could be a source.
posted by metatuesday at 12:49 PM on January 7, 2023


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