It has been an interesting month, to say the least. No matter what situation you find yourselves in now, why not take a moment and just breathe – try to not worry about life long enough to have a cup of tea and let someone else read to you during story time. Or, if you have kids, let someone else read them a story. We here at Geek Girl Authority have taken the time to compile a short list of celebrities that will be spending a part of their day with a book open just for you and can point you in the direction of some free audiobooks, as well.
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Dolly Parton: The Book Lady from Imagination Library
Beginning on April 2nd, join Dolly Parton live on Facebook on Thursday nights for bedtime stories during Goodnight with Dolly. The books Dolly will read are handpicked from the Imagination Library. For anyone unfamiliar with Imagination Library, it is the foundation Dolly founded in 1995 that sends age-appropriate books to children until they are in school. If you would like to register your child to receive books or if you would like to donate to the nonprofit, just visit imaginationlibrary.com. Don’t forget to tune in to the foundation’s Facebook page on Thursdays for story time!
LeVar Burton Reads: Live on Twitter
On Friday, April 3rd, LeVar Burton will kick off his LeVar Burton Reads Twitter Livestream series. The actor-turned-podcaster has been heavily involved in promoting literacy since his Reading Rainbow days, which was the inspiration behind his LeVar Burton Reads podcast. The live reads will be set to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule with a different theme per day. Mondays will be children’s books at 9am Pacific, providing a morning reading hour that should cover most kids in America. Wednesdays will be selections of the Young Adult variety at 3pm Pacific, which should allow most of the intended audience to be completed or nearly completed with their daily studies. Fridays will be reserved for the adult audience, with an evening performance at 6pm Pacific. LeVar Burton Reads is hosted on Stitcher and a variety of additional stories are available at your fingertips at levarburtonpodcast.com. The beauty of his podcast? Any time of day can be story time!
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Josh Gad Reads Nightly
Jokingly referred to as “10 minutes of daycare,” Josh Gad, the voice of everyone’s favorite snowman on Frozen, is spending every night reading a children’s book. There is no set schedule or time, but it appears he tries to sit down around 6pm Central for a livestream story time on Twitter. If you miss the live read, you can scroll through his twitter feed to catch the evening’s book or go back to find all of his previous reads. And, yes, he does voices!
Storyline Online: A Collection of Actors Reading Children’s Books
Whether you have kids or are a kid at heart, Storyline Online has you covered. The nonprofit organized by the SAG-AFTRA Foundation hosts a wide collection of books read by actors with cute accompanying illustrations. A sampling of their offerings includes Betty White reading Harry The Dirty Dog, David Harbour reading Snappsy The Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be in This Book), and Chris Pine reading Clark the Shark. Visit StorylineOnline.net to view their full library for an on-demand story time or to leave a donation.
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Audible’s Free Streaming Selection
Though not offered through their app, Audible has curated a selection of audiobooks for free streaming “as long as the schools are closed.” The books offered up are organized by age groupings, from “Littlest Listeners” to “Teen”, but also includes “Folk & Fairy Tales For All” and “Literary Classics”. There are even books in French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Japanese! All of the books must be streamed via stories.audible.com, but the extra steps are worth it to have access to the free works. (If you have the time, might we suggest a listen to the Audible Original The Mystwick School of Musicraft by Jessica Khoury in the Elementary category? It’s a cute little tale blending music with Harry Potter.) Having the online catalog makes any time story time!
Will you be taking advantage of the online story times and free audiobooks? We here are GGA are quite excited to hear what LeVar Burton has to offer and are already enjoying the selection over at Audible! Which story time are you looking forward to the most?
This article was originally published 04/01/20
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