TumbleBooks are animated, talking eBooks which teach kids the joy of reading in an engaging format. TumbleBooks are created by adding animation, sound, music and narration to existing books in order to produce an eBook which students can read and have read aloud to them. TumbleBooks provide enrichment for students who are reading independently with a variety of high interest material. They also provide support for students who require skill building with a variety of texts and exercises that support content curricula. TumbleBooks are a great addition to reading programs, read independently by each student or by the whole class. These resources have been exceptionally well received by ESL and Special Education teachers.

Target Audience: K-5

Content Connections: Reading/ELA, Science, Social Studies, Mathematics, Technology

Access: Username and password information for BCPS staff and students can be found on the BCPS Digital Content Access Page. 

⭐Click here to see a list of translation, accommodation, and modification features available for Multilingual Learners and students with special education needs.⭐

Educator Resources

• Access Summer Reading Challenge 2024 Resources to use with students

• Explore the TumbleBook Library User Guide to learn more about getting started and navigating the site.

• TumbleBook Cloud titles include links to Lesson Plans and professional Book Reviews.  

• Featured titles appear at the top of the page featuring books reflective of the time of year, genres, awards, and new books.

• New titles present TumbleBooks that were recently added to the TumbleBook Library. 

• Story Books include a wide selection of picture books including children's favorites.  See a complete list of titles.

• Graphic Novels are hugely popular with young readers and feature text highlighting along with audio narration.  

• EBooks/Read-Alongs are early chapter books for older elementary readers. While there are no animations, the ebooks are narrated. They also include Chapter menus so that you can jump chapters, and a bookmarks and notes feature which are saved as cookies onto your computer. Chapter Books also allow readers to change the colors of the background and text, as well as the font style, size, and line spacing. This makes these eBooks even more accessible to a wider range of readers.  

• Language Learning includes a growing selection of books in Spanish and French  

• Nonfiction titles allow young readers the opportunity to explore stories about real animals, people, places and topics. 

• Math Stories enable young learners to increase math skills while reading stories which help them learn to count, add, subtract and more. Games, quizzes and supplementary material accompany the books.

• Playlists provide access to themed mini-collections of related titles which play in sequence, as well as a link to TumbleTV, an animated TV show with host Tommy Tumbler introducing new books and old favorites. Tommy is a stand up comic who tells jokes, riddles, and stories in between books. 

• Videos include National Geographic titles which support content curriculum standards, covering subjects such as History, Geography, Social Studies and Science. Many of these videos are paired with non-fiction books in the collection. For example, students can read Meet the Meerkat by Darrin Lunde, and then watch an educational video from National Geographic to learn more about this fascinating creature. Several biographical videos are also included in the collection, including Benjamin Franklin and Muhammad Ali.

• Puzzles and Games reinforce concepts from the books, allowing for a learning experience that is both educational and fun. 

• Lexiles/Reading Levels:  

  • Search by Lexile or recommended Reading Level using the TumbleSearch drop-down menu.

  • Search results will display recommended Reading Levels.