Beautiful Kids Apps

We've built up a small collection of kid's apps on our family iPad. It's just as tempting for me to buy new apps as it is to buy beautiful children's books. With the bonus that they occupy my busy 2 year old while I juggle my now 1 month old newborn. Here are two recent favorites!

Puzzld: Illustrations by Jacob Souva. App by WindupRocket
Gorgeous puzzles, really fun music that changes for each screen. As media rich as it gets for an iPad!
Shake and Make: Illustrations by Ed Emberley, App by Night & Day Studios
This app is chock full of Ed Emberley's classic work. You definitely get your money's worth from the size and play length. It's designed for the iPhone, but works pretty well on our iPad, and scales up decently.

My Little Big Book

This post is a continuation of the conversation I started a couple of weeks ago.

I recently happened upon this iPad App called My Little Big Book (above shows main title screen). This App basically houses many children's books now in the public domain. It's easy to use, intuitive, and it's basically a children's writers' & illustrators' history lesson in an app. Check out these screenshots...

Here is the first screen after the title screen (above). This supplies an index of the books available. You can also search by Category. (See the menu strip at the bottom).

When you click on a book, you will be greeted with this screen (above). You have options to read the book, add to your 'bookshelf',  or download the book. You will need to download the book to view it offline. (I am not sure what the "add to my bookshelf" option provides for you, and the user must create an account in order to do this.) On the lower portion of this screen, there is also an option to see other books from same author, which is really helpful.

When you view the actual book, what you will be seeing is what looks like actual scanned pages from the books (see above). It's fun to see the artwork and design from these books in their original form. In one of the books I looked at, I came across a library marking that dated back to 1905!

This is a really neat App which provides a lot of value, and the most amazing thing of all is that it is FREE.

This app is very useful for moms of youngsters, those who make their career in children's entertainment, publishing and educational.

There is an option to upload your own book into the system as well. This could be very useful promotional option for and small publishers, writers, and illustrators! With 30,000 downloads thus far, I have high hopes that this App will only improve and continue to grow stronger.

http://www.mylittlebigbook.com

http://blog.mylittlebigbook.com/