Carisa at Digital Storytime has sent out an urgent request to book app lovers to nominate their 2012 favourites for the Cybil Awards (Children and Young Adults Bloggers Literary Awards). View the current nominations and then nominate another title by clicking here - but it has to be done before midnight tonight (California time)!
In case you don't have a clue what to nominate, Carisa has listed some suggestions on her Facebook page. Take a look - if you see something that strikes a chord, go ahead and nominate it. If you choose a title of your own just make sure it first appeared in the App Store after October 2011.
To get you in the mood for thinking about what a great year 2012 has been for book apps, I've put together a list of ones that I've really enjoyed and that are all free. Many have appeared on the site before as Good Free Apps of the Day (GFAOTD) and some are on our Top 100 Free Apps list but a couple you won't have seen on the site before. I've listed them in order of age appropriateness and there's ones suitable for toddlers right though to teens and adults.
Starting off with a couple of "decide your own" stories for the littlest ones. The first is Chipper's Rainy Day Adventure, here's an excerpt from my GFAOTD comments: "In this ebook for young children, a mouse called Chipper needs help deciding how to spend his day. The child can pick options for how Chipper builds a fort, where he plays hide-and-seek, how he plays in the rain and where he should take his bath. Words are highlighted as read and the interactivity is engaging. The app is bright, colorful and free!"
(FREE iPad only)
In The Land of Me: Storytime, an owl, a raccoon and a bear are listening to stories told by Granny, an ancient tortoise. Your child gets to create the story by choosing the protagonist, a storyline and the nature of the ending. Endearing artwork, gentle humor and some great comprehension questions combine to make this a really lovely book app.
(FREE iPad2 and above only)
The Collins Big Cat books continue to be free currently but In the Garden is definitely my favorite. Oliver loves moving the magnifying glass around the page to look for bugs. I love that the app is full of the sound of children's laughter as well as play. The book is also full of opportunities to practice and acquire useful language.
(FREE, iPad only)
As Ron so eloquently put it when he chose this as a GFAOTD: "baby animals"!!!!
(FREE, iPhone/iPad)
Peggy Storybook 1 is so Canadian, that when you squeeze it, maple syrup drips out of your iPad*. Despite being rife with stereotypes I do love this app. The gap-toothed little girl who plays the fiddle and her Newfoundland dog, Droolie, are really cute and the 3D effect is pretty cool, but the clincher for me is the narration by Mary Walsh. I love her! If that's not enough for you - there's a beaver carrying a bucket of blueberries on its tail - come on!
*Not actually true.
(Not eligible for Cybils nomination as first posted to the app store in September 2011)
(FREE, iPad only)
What I love most about A Not So Fading Light is that it reminds me of Wallace and Gromit. The brother and sister in this book have the same sense of belief in themselves combined with innocence, amateur-but-effective inventiveness and need for unorthodox provisions (although this mission is fueled by chocolate cake rather than cheese). A delightful app.
(FREE iPhone/iPad)
I know that Ron doesn't really get why we still tell stories like The Princess and the Pea. He has a point but I've always loved the fact that this Hans Christian Andersen classic has as many layers of interpretation as there are mattresses on the princess' bed. Even if you don't think much of the tale however, check out the free version in the Magic Town app. Magic Town is a book store from developer Mindshapes offering expensive ($5.99) book apps that you can access through either in-app purchase or a monthly subscription. Old standbys like Aesop's Fables, the Arabian Nights and Cinderella are free however and I really enjoy the artwork that accompanies the stories. The Princess and the Pea in particular has almost a German expressionist look to it that I really like.
(Not eligible for Cybils nomination as part of a bookstore app; only standalone books qualify)
(FREE with in-app purchases, iPad only)
From my GFAOTD description: "Icky Mr. Fox is up to no good. He's decided to dig into Mr. Rabbit's burrow and consume him for dinner! Meanwhile, unaware of his impending potential doom, Mr. Rabbit and his friend Mr. Mole are enjoying elderflower tea and a plate of biscuits... The artwork, narration and ambient music are all nicely done. The story is quirky, with a very English sensibility."
(FREE, iPad only)
New release Neomad is incredibly difficult to write a quick precis about but I'll have a go. It's done in a comic book style and the graphics look stunning on the iPad. It's set in Australia and is a fictional story about a cast of characters, all based on real people who have provided the voiceovers. The story itself is a fantasy and is set in a hi-tech, dystopian future that combines spy bots, flying vehicles together with ancient indigenous beliefs. There's a standalone story about the birth of one of the characters together with Episode 1 of a three-part story. The app is free for all of October and possibly longer. It's got music, live action and a group of lads called the Love Punks who are going to save the universe (in-between playing pranks and razzing each other). My new favorite jibe is now: "ya dumb wing!"
(FREE, iPad only)
This app got my nomination for a Cybil award and if you haven't yet looked at this great app, now is the perfect time. October is National Bullying Prevention month and this app includes a powerful anti-bullying message as well as materials useful to kids, parents and teachers who seek to combat bullying. For kids who like history, there's first-person narrative from Edson Hendricks himself as well as copies of original documents. If you like neat graphics this app has some very nicely done but understated ones. And for children who are into computers, well, they can read all about the man who thought of network connectivity, a little thing that made the Internet possible.
(FREE, iPad only)
** Only the app's developer can control when an app is free or not. All the above apps are verified to be free at the time of this post. We make no guarantees otherwise. **
Deanne Shoyer is the mother to twin boys on the autism spectrum, blogs at smallbutkindamighty.com, has two history degrees and looks a lot less hip than her avatar.
I have got 1 recommendation for your blog site. It looks like right now there are a number of cascading stylesheet troubles when opening a number of webpages in google chrome as well as internet explorer. It is operating fine in internet explorer. Perhaps you can double check this.
Posted by: http://justhostcouponcode.org | 05/12/2013 at 06:55 PM
An interesting discussion is worth comment. I feel that you simply need to write extra on this subject, it could not be a taboo subject but normally individuals are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers
christian louboutin shoes
Posted by: NoibioksBib | 05/14/2013 at 03:09 AM