InteractiveBooks
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Daily iPad App: The Little Girl Who Could Fly is a delightful interactive book for children
Today we are stepping outside our typical app reviews for the iPad and looking at an interactive book. Because of their interactive elements, these titles stray over into the app category. This particular title, The Little Girl Who Could Fly from YellowPixie, is an animated, illustrated adapatation of Karl Capek's children's book, The Man Who Knew How to Fly. The digital book opens with an illustrated page that has the book's credits, a start reading button and two toggles for controlling the background sound and the narration. The narration is pleasant and is an excellent accompaniment for younger children. Each page of the book has navigation arrows that let you move back and forward through the pages. There's also a home button and a toggle to turn off the background sound on every page. The 20 or so illustrations throughout the book are light-hearted and colorful. They are animated and move along with the story. Each page is filled with adventure as there are three to six illustrated items that'll move or make a noise when your child taps on them. My favorite is the teacher's hat that'll do a flip when you tap on it. Your child can also tilt the iPad and control the main character when she is flying. There are also two mini-games within the book. One will let your child color along with the lead character and another is a dress-up game that the little girls in the audience will enjoy. The games pop up in the middle of the story, but they fit in with the story line. As a result, the games add to the story and only minimally distract from it. The storyline about a girl who proves she can fly is fun. My children read the book, both with me and by themselves, several times. It's definitely geared towards the younger set, but it's not an early reader like See Jack Run. It's a storybook with a delightful tale that's perfect for a parent or an older sibling to read to their three to six-year-old. Set aside some time when you first read the book to your child as some of the words are long. You may have to explain the meaning of words like delegation and 90-degree angle, before you let them loose on their own. You can download The Little Girl Who Could Fly from iTunes for US$4.99.
Daily iPad App: Demibooks Composer
One of the great Apple products many years ago was HyperCard, which allowed non-programmers to easily build interactive "stacks" with many linked pages (cards). Now a new iPad app, Demibooks Composer (free) brings a similar capability of easy creation to anyone who would like to publish an interactive iPad book and sell it on the App Store. You can learn the basics of Demibooks Composer in just a few minutes through a built-in tutorial. Once you're done with the tutorial, looking at the three built-in projects is a great way to learn even more about how certain effects were accomplished. The sample projects include two interactive children's books and a chess puzzle game, all using sound, graphics, and element physics in different ways. While HyperCard required some coding to achieve fancy effects, Demibooks Composer is completely code-free. Objects are moved and resized through standard gestures, and at any time during development of a project, you can preview how things are going to look or act with just a single tap on a preview button. For people who are thinking of developing a lot of projects, Demibooks Composer thoughtfully provides Dropbox support for online backup or sharing of project files. Once your project is completed, it can be published on the App Store through an upcoming service called "PrintShop." Prices will vary depending on the level of service you want, starting at US$499. You'll also need to have an Apple iOS Developer account. There's a overview video of the app below that shows just how easy it is to use Demibooks Composer to create interactive projects, but the best way to get familiar with this powerful creation app is to download it. It's available for free during the introductory period, so get it now and see if it's right for you.
