When the student is ready, the teacher appears. I was finally ready to learn about Overdrive.

On overdrive.com it says, “Access to the  most content. Borrow eBooks, audiobooks, and more from your local library, anywhere, anytime. All you need is a library card.”

“Millions of Titles. Thousands of Libraries. A one tap app.”

My daughter had mentioned Overdrive a few  years ago, but I wasn’t really listening. I was getting my books off of Amazon! In two days!  I was heady with the ease which with I could get my hands on books I wanted to read. Yet, in an effort to rein in my addictive and expensive habit and having bought books that I wasn’t thrilled with, I was finally ready to try the library’s answer to  the app Audible or Kindle’s Whispersync. I was curious about how it worked, so I went to the library. I had a fine so I had to find the magazines I had checked out, return them and clear up the fine. Once I got that cleared, I was able to log online at home with my library card number on overdrive.com.

Really, Overdrive is amazing if you want audio books and you don’t want to pay for the app Audible. It is free to anyone who has a library card. You do have to wait for books, but get on and reserve them and they will come up in a few short weeks. You can only reserve ten books at a time. If the book is highly popular then you can wait up to a year for it. You may want to buy your own copy if the wait is killing you. Overdrive works on your computer but is managed on your phone by an app called Libby. Get it? Short for library?

My first book to read on the Libby app was The Last Cowboys, which is a new book, nonfiction. It is pictured above.  I highly recommend it. My book group is reading it for February, and it is a peek into a ranching family in southern Utah, with pioneer roots. In order to make ends meet, their sons start going into rodeo–up to 100 a year. It is fascinating to understand the challenges of ranchers, the brutal and lonely life of the rodeo, and to see how a family can survive change.  There is a little bad language, mostly around the rodeo scenes. I also just listened to  1-2-3 Magic which is an older parenting book that a friend recommended which I posted about on my previous post. I am currently listening to a new book right now, that I heard about at Education Week,  held at BYU every year in August. It’s called No-Drama Discipline: The Whole Brain Way to Calm the Child and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind by Daniel J Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. I plan to post on it soon.

What other books are on my shelf and waiting for me to listen to?  Victoria the Queen, by Julia Baird, The Collapse of Parenting by Leonard Sax Phd., and The Essential Nibley by Martin Van Dam, about Hugh Nibley.  If I don’t get to it in the time allotted to me, I can reorder it again and wait my turn. Other book group books on hold for me  but not available yet are Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. To drive and listen is a dream, as is doing any work around the house. It makes any job I am doing go faster. It would also be amazing to use this tool to have books going for your children in the car. They are strapped in and a captive audience. They will beg you to turn on whatever book you pick when you drive them around.

You probably are already using Overdrive– I am a late bloomer! If you haven’t heard of it or aren’t using it, now there are  no excuses. Reading helps broaden your world and helps you and your children become more interested and interesting. I will never look at another rodeo the same way.

Read, read, read! It has never been easier!