Archive for the ‘children’s ebooks’ tag
PBS and Jim Henson launch new children’s app no comments
PBS and the Jim Henson Co. have launched a new children’s edutainment iPhone app, Sid’s Science Fair, based on the animated preschool series Sid The Science Kid. The app is designed to interest children ages 3 to 6 in science.![Sids-Science-Fair-kids-learning-app_thumb[2]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Greenlee/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles6877B6/Sids-Science-Fair-kids-learning-app[4].jpg "Sids-Science-Fair-kids-learning-app_thumb[2]")
Sid’s Science Fair includes three mini-games that help to improve science and math skills:
- Gabriela’s “Collection Inspection”: Choosing from several different exploration environments, children discover patterns in natural objects using an interactive magnifying glass.
- May’s “Chart It!”: Children use charts to explore a set of objects and then organize ten objects on a chart according to a shared trait, such as color, shape and orientation.
- Gerald’s “Time Machine”: Children explore how different objects – from food to plants – change over time. They first order the events in sequence, and then the events form into a timeline that players can move forward and backward in time to see the transformation.
Sid’s Science Fair is $2.99 at iTunes.
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Scholastic to launch children’s ereading app no comments
Scholastic will be launching a new ereading app for young readers this fall that will connect to the Scholastic Book Clubs for purchasing and downloading ebooks. Available content will include picture books, elementary series, middle grade chapter books and young adult novels.
Scholastic is negotiating with publishers to bring their catalogs on board, and today announced an agreement with indie publisher Sourcebooks. Both Sourcebooks’ frontlist and backlist of children’s titles will be offered in the Scholastic app.
Some of the first Sourcebooks titles to be available via the Scholastic ereading app when it launches will be the bestselling Horrid Henry series by Francesca Simon, Kristi Yamaguchi’s Dream Big, Little Pig and I Love You More by Laura Duksta.
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Oceanhouse Media children’s reading apps on sale no comments
Oceanhouse Media is having a Back to School Sale through Oct 2. 
Each week a new selection of the developer’s interactive children’s reading apps will be on sale. This week ten of the Dr. Seuss titles have been marked down to $1.99 each. Other weeks The Berenstain Bears, Little Critter, Five Little Monkeys and the Smithsonian Collection will be discounted.
The sale includes Oceanhouse Media’s apps for iPhone/iPad that are available at iTunes as well as the Android versions that are available at Amazon’s Appstore for Android and the Android Market. Oceanhouse Media apps are also available for the Nook Color at the Nook Color app store.
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VTech InnoTab children’s tablet available for pre-order no comments
Earlier this year VTech announced the InnoTab educational tablet designed for children aged 4-9. The InnoTab is now available for pre-order from several sources, including Amazon and Walmart, at a price of about $80.
The InnoTab comes with some pre-loaded apps, including an interactive animated e-book, motion games, creative activities, MP3 music player, photo viewer, video player, alarm clock, calculator, calendar and an address book.
Additional apps, interactive ebooks, learning games and other content come in the form of both cartridges and downloadable content. Popular characters and stories such as Cars, Toy Story, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob Squarepants and Disney Princesses are featured.
The InnoTab features durable construction and sports a 5-inch color LCD touchscreen, tilt-sensor for motion game control, USB port, SD card slot, headphone jack and comes with a stylus.
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California libraries to provide free access to Scholastic BookFlix no comments
Library patrons in California will have free access to BookFlix from computers at their local library or from home, according to a press release from Scholastic.
BookFlix is a program intended for classrooms and libraries from Scholastic that pairs award-winning video from Weston Woods based on children’s picture books with related nonfiction ebooks from the Scholastic catalogue. Young readers can watch a video version of their favorite story book and then find related material in the accompanying ebooks.
Currently BookFlix features 95 fiction/nonfiction pairings, 25 of which are also available in Spanish, with more titles in the works. The program is designed for children in grades Pre-K3.
Some of the features of BookFlix include:
- A "read-along" option that provides word-by-word highlighting so children can follow along as the fiction video is narrated and the nonfiction ebook is read aloud.
- Narrated text and definitions of key vocabulary words to support beginning and reluctant readers, as well as English Language Learners;
- Educational games and activities that encourage children to show what they have learned and to reinforce early reading skills like fluency, vocabulary development and reading comprehension;
- Biographies and interviews that introduce young readers to their favorite authors; and
- Safe, age-appropriate web links to encourage children to further explore topics that pique their interest.
"BookFlix connects the library to the home," said Hugh Roome, President of Scholastic Library Publishing. "In adopting BookFlix, California is making cutting-edge e-reading technology available to families anywhere they have an Internet connection, and providing a tool that introduces young readers to classic books and stories in new, 21st Century formats."
Update: It might be hard to find the link to this on your library’s site — I finally tracked down the BookFlix link at the Los Angeles library, which I use, thanks to one of the helpful state librarians.
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HarperCollins launches digital versions of I Can Read! series no comments
HarperCollins has launched digital versions of the I Can Read! early reader program. The popular children’s series is now available at the Nook Bookstore and through the iBookstore for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The ebooks feature audio read-along and sound effects.
Barnes & Noble has a page dedicated to the I Can Read! series in its Nook Kids department. At both iTunes and B&N the first ebook in the series, Dixie, is free. There are 80 titles from the series available now, with more on the way.
Presumably the series will make it to the Kindle Store as well when Amazon releases a tablet, though B&N and iOS have a big head start when it comes to children’s ebooks.
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A few new children’s reading apps no comments
Children’s reading apps are one of the biggest categories at the Apple App Store and there are indeed a ton of them. These are just a few recent titles that look interesting.
Journey Into the Deep
Based on the award-winning book by Rebecca L. Johnson, this enhanced ebook from Lerner Publishing is not just for children. The app explores the ocean from the shallows to the deepest abysses and introduces readers to some of the newly discovered sea creatures found there.
Journey Into the Deep is based on scientific expeditions involved in the Census of Marine Life, which was conducted by more than two thousand researchers from 82 countries over ten years. The app takes readers to research sites around the globe. In addition to video and photographs, Journey Into the Deep includes links to websites containing further information and a discussion guide.
Journey Into the Deep is $2.99 at iTunes.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is an animated children’s short film and interactive book. The app contains several interactive mini games that help to advance the story. Available for $4.99 at the App Store.
Kung Fu Panda 2
The Kung Fu Panda 2 interactive storybook follows the plot and contains
imagery and music from the film of the same name. The story follows Po (Jack Black) as he lives his dream protecting the Valley of Peace as the Dragon Warrior alongside his friends and fellow Kung Fu masters, the Furious Five — Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey.
Designed for children aged two and up, Kung Fu Panda 2 features a narration option and the pages can be turned manually or will turn by themselves with the Auto Play mode. The app also includes “Create-A-Scene” which is a digital sticker book featuring the main characters from Kung Fu Panda 2.
$2.99 at iTunes.
Once Upon a Potty
Oceanhouse Media has released Once Upon a Potty: Girl and Once Upon a Potty: Boy. These books are the first results from a licensing partnership between Oceanhouse Media and bestselling children’s author and illustrator Alona Frankel.
Frankel’s Once Upon a Potty picture books, audio editions and videos have sold more than five million copies in the US alone and have been translated into many languages.
The new enhanced versions include the ability for young readers to read by themselves or have the story narrated to them. An Auto Play mode is also available to play the story like a movie. Other features include a Sing-Along, picture/word association, lyric and text highlighting as well as an original musical score to accompany the original artwork.
Available at iTunes for an introductory price of $2.99.
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Sunday offers for Kindle & Android at Amazon no comments
There are several new offers today at Amazon that may be of interest. First of all, another free Kindle book:
Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals by Andrew Caldwell (4 1/2 stars/14 reviews) Nonfiction.
Today’s free app at the Appstore for Android:
Retro Camera Plus (3 1/2 stars/50 reviews) is a photography app that lets you simulate six vintage cameras. The cameras included are The Bärbel from East Germany, The Little Orange Box from Soviet Russia, The Xolaroid 2000 (Polaroid), The Pinhole Camera and the Hipsteroku. Each camera comes with its own set of vignetting, film scratch and cross processing effects and pics have authentic borders. Retro Camera Plus comes with a sharing feature that lets you share photos with your contacts. The app has been updated to work with Honeycomb.
The Appstore also has a children’s classic on sale for a limited time:
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (5 stars/5 reviews). This app from Oceanhouse Media is regularly priced at $3.99, but has temporarily been marked down to $0.99.
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Some new iPad & Android apps – Children’s reading; learn guitar with Jackson Browne; another news aggregator no comments
Several new apps that may be of interest. By the way, Amazon’s free Android app for today is Monkey Preschool Lunchbox (4 1/2 stars/54 reviews), an edutainment app for preschoolers.
Elmer’s Special Day
Elmer’s Special Day is the latest interactive children’s book to be released by Oceanhouse Media, now a part of Random House. This is the first in a planned series based on the classic Elmer the Patchwork Elephant books.
The first Elmer the Patchwork Elephant book was released in 1989 and the popular children’s stories have by now been translated into over 20 languages. Elmer’s Special Day is aimed at readers in preschool through grade 2. The interactive book app features an optional narration mode that highlights the words as they are spoken. Young readers can also choose to read the story for themselves or watch it like a movie. An overview of the story:
Written and illustrated by David McKee, Elmer’s Special Day has the gray elephants decorating themselves for the annual Elmer’s Day Parade. Since only Elmer is allowed to be elephant colored on that day, he rolls around in elephant colored berries to hide his patchwork colors. The noise and preparations, however, upset the other jungle animals. Elmer finds a solution by offering to include them in the day’s festivities so no animal is excluded. In appreciation, the animals put on elephant masks in honor of Elmer and they all happily join the parade.
Elmer’s Special Day is $2.99 at iTunes and the Android Market. It will probably also be available soon at the Amazon Appstore for Android.
On the Music Path
A new version of the bestselling On the Music Path iPad app is out featuring a 65-minute lesson by singer-songwriter Jackson Browne. 
In the video Browne discusses his distinctive approach to the guitar and teaches users how to play four of his classic songs. Altogether the new lesson includes 12 practice sessions.
There is a promo video at YouTube (embedding is disabled, so you have to watch it there), in which Jackson Browne praises the app:
“What I like about the app,” Jackson says in the video, “is that it is very much like a book in that you can open it whenever you want, it will keep your place, and you can come back to it whenever you want. It kind of defeats the constraints of time and space, all the barriers of getting together with a teacher at a particular time.”
One of Jackson’s favorite technical features is the ability to slow the teacher’s demonstration down to ¼ of its original speed. “In the old days,” he explains, “we used to play 45’s at 33 so that we could actually register what was being played… This modern piece of technology is actually in service of the age-old musician’s quest to see exactly what the teacher’s doing.”
Jeff Bridges also made an unscripted video demoing the On the Music Path app, which is below. The app features carefully structured lessons teaching all levels of students to play guitar, piano, drums and bass. The lessons feature a cast of internationally well-known musicians as teachers.
On the Music Path is currently free for a limited time at iTunes. Individual lessons can be purchased from within the app for $4.99 to $19.99 and you can sample the first few chapters of each lesson for free, including the first 10 chapters of the lesson taught by Jackson Browne. The proceeds from the Jackson Browne lesson are being donated to the Success Through The Arts Foundation.
News Republic
News Republic is a news aggregator that is now available for Android and other devices after being available at iTunes in an iPhone version for four months.
News Republic is available in English, French, Italian and Spanish editions, with a German language version in the works.
Besides the Android and iPhone versions, News Republic is available in versions for the BlackBerry, Symbian, Bada, Windows Phone 7 and webOS platforms. The Android version supports Honeycomb tablets and an iPad version is expected in a few weeks. That’s interesting — Honeycomb before iPad support.
News Republic lets users create their own personalized news channels and easily search and organize news articles according to their interests. Sources include over 50 leading news agencies, major brands and local media sources from around the world including AFP, AP, Reuters and PR Newswire and multiple specialist media outlets including ITN, Adfero, Techradar, eWeek, celebrity news from WENN and more.
The app has secured licensing agreements from all content providers. This means full stories are shown with any pictures and videos within the app itself. News Republic is a free app.
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PBS launches its first children’s app for Android no comments
PBS has launched the first Android version of one of its children’s apps. 
Super Why! is based on the hit preschool series and is designed to help kids build literacy skills.
Super Why! for Android contains four interactive literacy games and a virtual sticker book. The four main characters from the PBS Kids series — Alpha Pig, Princess Presto, Wonder Red and Super Why — are all in the app.
The Super Why app is priced at $2.99, but for a limited time it is free at the Amazon Appstore for Android. Requires Android 2.1 or above.
£149.00
£109
