Kindle FreeTime: Now With OverDrive

Great news for parents!! OverDrive e-books are now available for use with Kindle FreeTime!

What is Kindle FreeTime?  According to howtogeek.com, Amazon’s Kindle FreeTime is “the most sophisticated and comprehensive parental control suite available for any tablet.” Unlike other parental control suites, FreeTime “outright reskins the device and turns it into a completely self-contained and kid-friendly tablet.” Furthermore, each child in the home can have their own age-appropriate profile that offers an interface, a separate application, and a media list.

OverDrive’s post on the topic provides additional details:

FreeTime content is separated into educational or entertainment categories. Parents are able to set daily educational goals for reading and learning, and with ‘Learn First’ can require that those goals are met before their child is able to watch cartoons or play games. In addition, parents can set how much time may be spent on any given activity – video, games, or reading – or an overall amount of time a child may use the device. Kids are unable to exit FreeTime without a password.

Now parents and kids can borrow OverDrive e-books and add them to a Kindle FreeTime profile, taking advantage of the same parental controls and educational goal-setting that FreeTime offers for other activities.

Library e-books may be added to FreeTime profiles by following these instructions, or through the “Manage Content & Subscription” section in FreeTime by taking the following steps:

  1. On the Start screen for FreeTime, tap “Manage Content & Subscription.”
  2. Tap “Add titles to [name of profile]’s Library.”
  3. Select “Books” from the dropdown menu.
  4. Check the box next to the desired title and tap “Done” in the upper right corner. The title will be added.

Be sure to share this with patrons who might be interested, and don’t forget to tell them about the eReading Room for kids too!

Mary Lee (Northland)