This week, Holly Hunter reads the story of the three little pigs, and children’s book characters Horton (who hears a Who), the Little Mermaid, Fancy Nancy, and Biscuit come alive in digital format. Plus, another Berenstain Bears app, and apps spun off of books by children’s book author Hans Wilhelm.
Title: The Little Mermaid for iPad
Publisher/Developer: Auryn, Inc.
Available: February 25
Price: $.99 through February 27; $3.99 thereafter
Background: The app is based on The Little Mermaid classic from Hans Christian Andersen and features illustrations by Lisbeth Zwerger.
Interactive features: Ripples make it feel and sound as if kids are reading the story underwater; interactive fish guide readers from one page to the next.
Title: The Berenstain Bears Love Their Neighbors
Publisher/Developer: Oceanhouse Media
Available: February 22
Price: $2.99
Background: The Bear family learns an important lesson about finding and giving help in unexpected places.
Interactive features: 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. Additional features include original artwork, picture/word association, word highlighting, professional audio narration, and scene-by-scene custom background audio.
Title: Horton Hears a Who!
Publisher/Developer: Oceanhouse Media
Available: February 22
Price: $3.99
Background: Horton the Elephant hears a small speck of dust talking to him. It turns out the speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a city called Who-ville, inhabited by tiny inhabitants known as Whos. Their Mayor asks Horton to protect them from harm, which Horton happily agrees to do, proclaiming throughout the book that "even though you can’t see or hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small."
Interactive features: 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. Additional features include original artwork, picture/word association, word highlighting, professional audio narration, and scene-by-scene custom background audio.
Title: Hans Wilhelm Collection
Publisher/Developer: MeeGenius!
Available: February 21
Price: $1.99 each
Background: E-bookstore app MeeGenius! adds five new titles by Hans Wilhelm, including Anook, Don't Give Up Josephine, Friends are Forever, The Big Boasting Battle, and With Lots of Love. Wilhelm has over 42 million books in print.
Interactive features: Audio playback and word highlighting. Hans Wilhelm is the narrator for all of his books on MeeGenius.
Title: The Three Little Pigs told by Holly Hunter
Publisher/Developer: Ruckus Media
Available: February 2
Price: $1.99
Background: Original recording production of The Three Little Pigs was a Parents’ Choice Gold Seal Award winner.
Interactive features: Actor Holly Hunter narrates one of the world’s most loved folktales. Kids can read along and record their voice.
Titles: Biscuit’s First Sleepover, Biscuit’s First Trip
Publisher: Curious Puppy/HarperCollins
Available: February 1
Price: $2.99 each
Background: More than 16 million Biscuit titles have been sold across all formats.
Interactive features: A “Read to Me” option has a professional narrator read the story. Individual words are highlighted as they are spoken. A “Read by Myself” option lets kids read the book themselves.
Title: Sit, Marley, Sit; Marley Steals the Show
Publisher/Developer: Curious Puppy/HarperCollins
Available: “Sit”: January 25; “Show”: February 22
Price: $2.99 each
Background: “Sit, Marley, Sit” is based on a bestselling story about Marley’s first day of obedience school. In “Marley Steals the Show,” Marley’s family has big hopes when they enter him in the local pet show, but things don’t go as planned. More than four million Marley children’s books have been sold across all formats.
Interactive features: A “Read to Me” option has a professional narrator read the story. Individual words are highlighted as they are spoken. A “Read by Myself” option lets kids read the book themselves.
Titles: Fancy Nancy and the Sensational Babysitter; Fancy Nancy and the Late, Late, LATE Night
Publisher/Developer: Curious Puppy/HarperCollins
Available: “Babysitter”: December 21, 2010; “Late Night”: January 18
Price: $2.99 each
Background: More than 17 million Fancy Nancy books have been sold across all formats. In “Sensational Babysitter,” Nancy is excited about her new babysitter coming over. She has their whole evening planned out, from playing with her doll to dressing up in fancy ensembles. But things don’t turn out quite as Nancy planned. In “The Late, Late, LATE Night,” Nancy decides to adapt the movie star lifestyle at home–and everybody knows that movie stars don’t go to bed early.
Interactive features: A “Read to Me” option has a professional narrator read the story. Individual words are highlighted as they are spoken. A “Read by Myself” option lets kids read the book themselves.
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.
