I am going to share with you the types of books I am using for my toddlers. I will discuss more difficult books in another article. These books and ideas are more appropriate for first learners and especially during the early years or if you want a introduce your children to French smoothly. Always remember that no matter how many books you will buy, what matters is that you use the words in your daily life in order to incorporate them to their vocabulary. So you could go a long way with a few books, just like you could have no improvement with many books.
1/ French library shipping worldwide
I found a French library which sells books worldwide! Their prices are ultimately higher than if you purchased the book in France but they have free shipping and they all any English speaker to understand and check out. I looked into other options but this was (as of right now) the only most convenient method and easy to use for non French speaker. Overall, I think this is worth it, if you are tight on a budget just choose wisely, just grab a few books and maybe buy one new book once in a while.
I will give you direct links to the books I mention, to help you select books and not be overwhelmed.
2/ Amazon
Sometimes amazon has some good bilingual books or access to some French books shipping to the US for example. Ultimately, I would use amazon for Amercian based bilingual books but I would use the French library for French books unless I would find a randomly good deal on a book on Amazon (unlikely).
3/ Facebook Marketplace
I look from time to time, you could be surprised! I once found an American family who was selling all their books in French. They had bought them over the years thanks to Friends visiting Québec. They sold me their whole stack for 20 dollars. Now I will say some are twaddle and would most likely not be Charlotte Mason approved, but you can also get good ones in the stack! So keep an eye on marketplace. Now keep in mind, Québec has a French language that is a little different than the language in France. They use some words that a French person wouldn’t use and for that reason these books contains some French québecois words.
4/ Library sales and used books stores
Sometimes libraries will have one or two book in French, so whenever you go to a library sale or a free library, just keep an eye for books in Foreign language, especially if you live next to a big used book store. Sometimes, the chilren’s books are in the foreign language section, and sometimes they are a tiny section in the children’s books area. So check both places!
Even thriftbook on occasion will have some French titles. Those are cross posted on Amazon at times.
5/ Online for some books in the public domain
When you know what you’re looking for, you can use Archive and Project Guternberg. They both have a few French books accessible on their platform! When possible, I will link books from those website directly into my articles so that I can help you find the resources that could be useful!
6/ Librivox, Libby, Spotify
Libby is usually accessible through your local library if they partner with it. Librivox is a website offering audibooks of free. Both of these allow you to make research, if you go into the advanced search tab, you can select French as a language and it’ll show you all they have in French!
Spotify also offers a few things in French, especially songs. I use it a lot for French nursery rhymes.
7/ Yoto
I haven’t tried it myself but apparently, you can have some French Audiobooks on Yoto!
8/ Alliance française and culturethèque
This is a little more technical to access but there are alliance française all over the world. You can look up the map on their website. Some offer free memberships for children (I know the once in Raleigh NC does, as of right now). Once you have an account you can sign up on culturethèque and then access books and audiobooks and more in French.
9/ The bonus suggestion: go to France with a half empty suitcase or ask your friends visiting
If your friends visit France, ask them for a specific book they could bring you back. If you have family or friends in France, ask them to send you a book for the kids’ birthdays for example. If you go visit France, make sure to keep a lot of room in your suitcase so you can bring back many things from your trip, including books!
Keep in mind you could get French books from other places such as Québec, Belgium, Luxembourg…
10/ Online search
For example, there is the website tous les contes Tous les contes – Contes, récits et légendes de tous les pays
It gathers the text versions of tales in French. They are organized by country, by theme or even by word search.
When it comes to videos you can always find some things on Youtube for example, or spotify for audio.
There are probably many more things to share. For example, some DVDs have a French track or French subtitles. Or you can purchase books and DVDs on eBay!
11/ Litterature audio
I found this website which has many audio files that you can listen to directly online or even download and put on your device. This is the link to the website.
Tell me in the comment if you have anything to add to this list: where do you find your French books and audiobooks and more ?
