If you're tired of watching series and movies or playing Call of Duty under COVID-19 quarantine, maybe it's time to read a book Good news: Apple has a large collection of free downloadable books for kids and adults There are also audiobooks

And these are not crappy books The selection is quite good

I have a young kid who runs around the house like a one-man theater troupe reenacting "Mad Max: Death Road to Fury" by himself While his mother and I work, he is growing tired of rewatching the few available children's shows on Netflix Thankfully, Apple's virtual bookshelf has plenty of free books for kids

Apple claims to have "dozens" of Sesame Street books That's not true By my count, there are at least 100 books Many of them are read-along long versions, perfect for kids to enjoy some unsupervised alone time doing something interesting

Here's another good idea: Apple is giving away the first novel in the series, for adults, for free This is a good way to try out the entire series and see if it interests you And it's good for Apple, too, because they can use this campaign to get more people to read the novels Because with promotions like this, you get hooked and buy more books

Some of the free books include "A Cold Dark Place" by Toni Anderson, "Agent Zero" by Jack Mars, and "Realm of Dragons" by Morgan Rice

At the time of publication, there were 95 novels, of varying quality and for all tastes

Apple has also thrown some really good audiobooks into the mix, some of which can be listened to like in the pre-TV days, with the whole family around the old radio [For example, "The Secret Garden," "The Time Machine," and "The Wizard of Oz" I can count 23 titles on my iPad

It's easy: open the Apple Books app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and you'll find it at the top of the Book Store section, under the featured collection of "free books for everyone, kids and adults"

Click on it to start browsing, then click "Get" on any of them if you are interested You will not be charged

Kudos to Apple for doing this during this trying crisis Hopefully Amazon and Google will follow suit