I’ve taken a look at several of Disney’s storybook, comic, and interactive apps over the past year, and I have always come away very impressed. Some have been better than others, but I’ve never had any reservations recommending any of them to the parents of young children, whether they are big Disney fans or not. Considering the quality and content, they have all been worth the reasonable prices that Disney tends to charge.
It’s been a few months since I last looked at one of Disney’s new or updated offerings, but I had to check out their recent update of their Beauty and the Beast: Deluxe Storybook, which coincided with the theatrical re-release of the movie in 3D. It made a lot of sense, considering that our family just got back from a 5 day vacation to Walt Disney World two weeks ago, and that Beauty and the Beast just happens to be my wife’s favorite of the Disney animated movies. Naturally, we all headed to the theater last Friday and watched the updated film in 3D, which I thought Disney did a very solid job with.
After we left the theater, I told my daughter about the updated Beauty and the Beast app and my impending review, and she was immediately ready to resume her official role as my Disney app tester. I downloaded the app as soon as we got home, and we jumped right in while the movie was still fresh in our minds. Not only did we both come away impressed with the app, but I would have to say that it is my favorite out of the ones we have looked at thus far. Beauty and the Beast is a bit on the girly side for me personally, but there is just so much content and so much to do here beyond the storybook, that it is the best value out of any Disney app that I have seen.
As for the storybook portion of the app, it is similar to the other Disney offerings that I have tried. However, as I already mentioned, it does include more content than I initially expected. First of all, Disney added triggered animations to 11 of the book’s scenes after the re-release of Beauty and the Beast in theaters.
Many of the scenes are styled in a way that is supposed to give a glasses-free 3-D effect, but there is only so far developers can take that on a device that isn’t designed to generate true 3-D effects. The animations are definitely of high quality, to be sure. I would expect no less from Disney. However, it would have been nice to see a them add a “true 3-D” mode for the app that would work with a standard pair of cheap 3-D glasses. There are other apps in the App Store that use low-tech 3-D effects, and considering that 3-D is the main focus of the theatrical re-release of the movie, this addition would have made the app update feel a little more in-step. While this omission was a slight disappointment for me, it didn’t bother my daughter in the least and probably won’t offend any other young fans of Beauty and the Beast. With that small complaint out of the way, I can say that the rest of the Beauty and the Beast: Deluxe Storybook was absolutely flawless.
In addition to the animated scenes, the app’s storybook contains all of the modes and settings that you will find in other Disney releases.
You can follow along as the story is read aloud to you, turn the audio off and read the story yourself at your own pace, or record your voice reading the story in place of the included vocals. I also noticed that Disney included a “Young Reader” mode that adds easy to understand forward and backward arrows to the top of the screen.
My daughter is five and has used enough of these apps to know that touching the upper right of the screen goes forward one page, and the top left will take her back a page. However, for younger children, or those less familiar with a touchscreen tablet, the arrows can be very helpful, and their inclusion shows great attention to detail and Disney’s understanding of their target audience.
Scattered throughout the storybook are several activities and games to help keep the experience fresh and interesting.
These can be accessed with icons that appear on several storybook pages, or separately from the app’s menu, which can be accessed by tapping the bottom of the screen.
There are puzzles, coloring pages, and even a couple of games included.
One game will have your child lead Belle and friends back to the castle through a garden maze.
The other will have you hunting through the book’s pages for roses, which are collected onto a page that appears at the end of the story.
As with other Disney apps, the puzzles and the maze come with adjustable difficulty levels to suit children of different ages and experience levels.
Another great touch is the inclusion of two complete musical scenes, Be Our Guest and Beauty and the Beast, from the original film.
This is an addition that fans of the movie both young and old will definitely appreciate. My daughter watched Be Our Guest at least 5 times after going through the storybook, so this feature was definitely a big hit with her. I was actually a little surprised at this since we had just gotten back from the theater a few hours before, but the added element of interactivity is something you can’t get just watching a film. With the iPad app, she had the scene in right there in her hands, with a measure of control over the experience, which seemed to add a lot to the experience for her.
Not only did Disney include these two music numbers in their entirety, but they also added a sing-along mode, complete with karaoke-style highlighted lyrics.
Sadie loves to sing and already knew most of the song, so she absolutely LOVED this! Her mommy, Beauty and the Beast fan that she is, also loved it as well. They had a lot of fun together singing along, which I got a kick out of watching.
Since I was already 99.999% sure that Sadie was going to love this app before I agreed to do the review, I decided to expand my test group a bit. My family gathers for lunch on a Sunday afternoon any month that we have one or more birthdays among us. My birthday was two weeks ago, and we have two more this month, as well, so we were all together this last Sunday. My two nieces have 4 girls between the ages of 2 and 6, so I decided to pull out my iPad, and have Saide show them Beauty and the Beast: Deluxe Storybook to see what they thought of it. The result was a perfect demonstration of the power of the iPad to draw users in, and of this app’s appeal to its target audience.
As you can see in the picture, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: Deluxe Storybook immediately captured everyone’s attention. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to snap a picture later on, as all five of the girls were in a circle on the floor with the iPad in the center. Everyone took turns (and behaved very well considering the ages and how many there were trying to use the iPad at the same time) triggering the animations on different pages, as well as going through the puzzles, coloring pages, and maze game. I think Be Our Guest got played a few times in there, as well. They played with the app together for over 30 minutes, and the only reason they stopped was because everyone started heading home. Anyone reading this who has more than one child can tell you that this is no small feat.
So, as always, Disney has delivered a first-rate storybook that is representative of their standards and is worth every penny of the $4.99 that it costs, and probably more. However, watching all of the little girls in my family play with Beauty and the Beast: Deluxe Storybook together reminded me of what makes the iPad so powerful. It is so simple and easy to use that a group of 2 to 6 year old girls can sit around it and know exactly what to do with it. When you pair that simplicity with great content, the iPad itself fades away and allows the app to shine. It’s a perfect delivery system because it rarely ever gets in the way.
Thanks to this perfect marriage, Disney is able to go beyond what a paper storybook is capable of. This digital storybook can provide the same interactive experience between a parent reading to their child, for example, that a paper version can. However, this kind of storybook app gives a younger child a way to experience the book for themselves, even if they can’t read yet. If the parent wants to, they can even record their voice reading the story, so the child always shares the experience with them, even if just in a small way. Also, at least for my daughter, using these apps repeatedly has developed into an educational activity, even if that wasn’t always her intent. She has gone through different storybook apps so many times and watched the highlighted words, that she started to learn and recognize the words for herself. Now, a year later, she is reading ahead above a Kindergarten level while still in preschool (she is 5, but was born too late in the year to go this year).
Much of what I am describing here isn’t anything new, as I have seen most of these same features with all of the Disney apps I have tested over the last year. However, the Beauty and the Beast: Deluxe Storybook takes the level of interactivity and the amount of content even further. When I gave my iPad to Sadie so she could show this app to her cousins, I expected them to pass the iPad around a bit and have fun for a few minutes, and then move on to something else. The fact that a $4.99 app had enough going for it to hold their collective attention and get them to play and have fun together for half an hour really surprised me. Most notable, however, is that they weren’t just mindlessly watching or listening, but playing and interacting with the app and each other. For example, they worked together to put the puzzle pieces in place, and to finish the maze. While, good old fashioned paper children’s books should always have a place in our lives, I doubt any could successfully pull this off. It’s a perfect example of how technology can be used to enhance education by making content fun and interactive, while still informative and creative.
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: Deluxe Storybook for the iPad costs $4.99, and can be found here.
Beauty and the Beast: Deluxe Storybook was provided by Disney for review on iSource. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
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