Free sports books for kids
Tap a book to see which story is inside it.
Tap a book to see what's inside.
Or start with Snail Wins the RacePicking one for your child
Every book here is sorted by Peabody's reading level, which is worked out from the text and never from the child. A lower level means shorter sentences and easier words, so start where your child can read about half of a book alone and read the rest together. If it is too hard, go down a level. If they race through it, go up.
A reading level is not an age
A ten-year-old who loves basketball and reads at a third-grade level should not be handed a baby book, and a strong young reader should not be handed a teenager's. So each athlete here is written three times: a plain, easy version a child of about 7 to 11 can read alone, a fuller one for about 10 to 13, and a detailed one for about 13 to 16. The level in the table is how hard the words are. The ages above are who the book is for.
Where the facts come from
These books are not official biographies and no player or team has approved them. Every fact comes from a page a person opened and checked, such as a league, a tennis or soccer federation, a news report or a museum, and every number carries the date it was true.
For the youngest readers
1 are at level 4: Snail Wins the Race. These suit a child just learning to read, or a grown-up reading aloud.
For growing readers
23 are at levels 5 to 8: The Tortoise and the Hare, How Soccer and the World Cup Work, Fifteen on Court One, Kobe Bryant's Two Numbers, The Shot That Bent in Munich, Worth Three Points and more. Longer books, with more going on in each one.
For confident readers
46 are at levels 10 to 14: Anchor Leg, Serena Williams and the Serve, How Did Erling Haaland Score 36 Goals?, How Has Ronaldo Lasted So Long?, Simone Biles and the Vault, How Caitlin Clark's Records Were Counted and more. These are for children who read chapters and longer passages on their own.
Reading them together
A grown-up can read any of these aloud from a phone or tablet, one page at a time, and a child who reads can take over. Where a device can speak, the book page has a Read to me button that reads each page aloud in the device's own voice. Every book page has a Print link too, if you would rather read on paper.
More free stories
- The whole library: free stories by reading level, no account needed.
- Classic stories retold short: fables, fairy tales, myths and legends.
- Free nonfiction books for kids, one topic at three levels
- Free technology books for kids
- Free funny stories for kids
- Free beginning reader books for kids just learning to read
- By level: Level 4 · Level 5 · Level 8 · Level 10 · Level 11 · Level 13 · Level 14
Questions parents ask
What reading level are these sports books?
They run across levels 4 to 14. Peabody works each level out from the book's text: how long the sentences are, how many words fit on a screen and how common the words are. The table shows the level of every book, so you can pick a lower or a higher one.
Are any of these books scary?
None carries a mark above gentle, and none is on the scary stories shelf. The short description on each book's page says what it covers, so read it first if your child is sensitive.
Do the books cost anything?
No. Every story on this page is free to read through the end of 2026, with no account and no card.
Teacher? Share this page to Google Classroom. Children open it with no sign-up.
Checked against how Peabody works on 19 October 2026. Written with help from AI, from Peabody's own code and library. Peabody is a learning app, not an assessment: if you're worried about your child's learning, talk to their teacher. How Peabody's pages are made.