This week, Britain's Nosy Crow debuts its first iPad app with an interactive version of the Three Little Pigs; Eileen Christelow's "Five Little Monkeys" are jumping... to the app format; and a new app helps kids learn about the 50 states.
Title: The Three Little Pigs for iPad
Publisher/Developer: Nosy Crow Ltd.
Available: February 17
Price: Lite version free; full version £4.99
Background: This is the first iPad app from Nosy Crow, a U.K. creator of children’s books and apps (the app is available for U.S. users as well).Interactive features:
Kids can flick the characters to make them jump, spin and speak; blow on the screen to help blow down the pigs' houses; help the pigs build each of their houses; tilt the screen to reveal more of the scene and find hidden characters; chase the pigs down the road in the wolf's van; and drop the wolf down the chimney and celebrate with the pigs. Available for iPad only.
Title: Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed omBook
Publisher/Developer: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Oceanhouse Media
Available: February 15
Price: Introductory price: $2.99
Background: Originally published in 1989, the Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed picture book takes the popular nursery rhyme and illustrates five precocious monkeys getting ready for bed. Seven titles about the monkeys have sold more than four million copies across all formats.
Interactive features: Three options are available: Auto Play (geared toward younger readers), which plays like a movie by automatically reading and turning pages; Read to Me, which allows users to listen to the narrated story with words highlighted as they are read; and Read It Myself, which lets users read the book in its traditional format. There is also original artwork, picture/word association, word highlighting, professional audio narration, and scene-by-scene custom background audio.
Title: Shake the States
Publisher/Developer: ZunZun Books/Third Chicken, Inc.
Available: February 4
Price: $0.99
Background: An original iPad app illustrated by children’s book illustrator Mernie Gallagher-Cole.
Interactive features: Touch and drag animation features help kids learn to locate and identify all 50 states on a map of the USA.
To be included in this 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. Send all apps to Jim Milliot, and send news of children’s apps to Diane Roback as well.
