This week we take a look at apps featuring the Berenstain Bears and Little Critter, one from Cajun artist and author George Rodrigue, and an original app about making the perfect blueberry muffin.
Title: The Berenstain Bears Do Their Best
Publisher/Developer: Oceanhouse Media
Available: January 13, 2011
Price: $2.99
Background: A rhyming tale that tells the story of Papa Bear helping Brother and Sister Bear make a kite, based on the book by Stan and Jan Berenstain with Michael Berenstain, which Zonderkidz published last year.
Interactive features: Individual words are highlighted as the story is read and words zoom up when pictures are touched.
Title: Little Critter's The New Baby
Publisher/Developer: Oceanhouse Media
Available: January 13, 2011
Price: $1.99
Background: Mercer Mayer's series are perennial favorites. In this story, published by Random House Books for Young Readers in 2001, Little Critter has to get used to a new baby sister.
Interactive features: Professional narration, background music and audio.
Title: You Can Count on Blue Dog: Blue Dog 123
Publisher/Developer: Louisiana Digital Gaming Initiative/Academy of Interactive Entertainment
Available: January 12, 2011
Price: Free
Background: George Rodrigue is a Cajun artist, author, and creator of the Blue Dog series, which includes Why Is Blue Dog Blue (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) and Are You Blue Dog’s Friend? (Abrams Books for Young Readers).
Interactive features: Each page displays a different piece of Rodrigue’s original art with countable objects. By touching the objects, children can count them in any order, hear pronunciation, and see the number displayed.
Title: Maid Marian Muffins
Publisher/Developer: Jamie and Jessica Vander Salm
Available: December 20, 2010
Price: $2.99 for iPad app; iPhone and iPod touch app coming later this month for an estimated price of $1.99
Background: Maid Marian is on a quest to make the perfect blueberry muffin. The story is based on the real-life adventures of Jessica Vander Salm (sister of Jamie), who runs a bakery in Brooklyn that delivers by bicycle.
Interactive features: There is a child-friendly self-record feature, professional narration, and music.
To be included in this weekly listing, please send us the app title, the book or other source for the app (if there is one -- original apps are fine, too), when it was released, price, background of the book (including such info as copies in print, when it was released, awards, and brief plot summary), and the interactive elements of the app. We also need the promo codes, and an image from the app if possible. Send all apps to Jim Milliot, and send news of children’s apps to Diane Roback as well.
