As a writer, I find the whole eBook revolution to be both thrilling and disheartening. On one hand, books are getting out there, more accessible and affordable than ever before. And people tend to read more when it becomes more convenient. On the other hand, a whole new generation of children may grow up thinking that literature is something that you click around on an iPhone or iPad, animating and beeping and interacting with like a video game. The storytelling/book reading part tends to take a back seat.
This is the problem I have with, say, Disney’s Toy Story “book” app which pretends to be a book — and indeed does have words in it — but is essentially the movie retold in capsulized form, complete with songs, games, and video clips. It’s great fun, but I thought we were supposed to be reading here. It’s almost as if the creators of the app decided that the reading aspect of the app needed to be masked in order to maintain a kid’s attention.
This leads me to the Story Chimes series — which I believe gets the balance just right. It has it’s bells and whistles, but it never overwhelms the act of reading. Right now they have 25 or so titles, running the gamut from classic fairy tales like Cinderella and Jack and The Beanstalk to more modern stories like A Walk With Grandpa and Marco Flamingo.
The story I took a look at (with my 2 1/2 year old son) was Sleeping Beauty, based on the original Grimm’s fairy tale, which is a universal app available for iPhone or iPad. It’s extremely well-executed, with bold, bright illustrations, a lively narrator (which you can turn off if you wish to read the story yourself) accompanied by scrolling text, a smattering of music and sound effects and, of course, their signature “chime” which indicates that it’s time to turn the page. This was my son’s favorite feature — even though the story itself is a little beyond his comprehension, he loved turning pages at the sound of the chime.
Perhaps my favorite aspect of the Story Chimes series is the flashcard feature at the end of every story. There were multiple choice questions about the story’s content for Sleeping Beauty and for there were Spanish vocabulary flashcards for the bilingual book, Nathan Saves Summer. It’s a fun, interactive way to challenge kids to pay attention.
The Sleeping Beauty app is priced at $1.99 but nearly all the rest of the Story Chimes series are 99 cents, which is a great bargain, especially when you compare it to some of the more high-profile children’s book apps that run anywhere from $2.99 to $4.99.
Let’s keep these kids reading!
Story Chimes Sleeping Beauty is available at the iTunes app store. An overview of the entire Story Chimes catalog can be found on their web page.
Siena Entertainment provided a promo code to Just Another iPhone Blog for the review of Story Chimes Sleeping Beauty. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
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