This week, there is a Facebook app based on the Princeton Review’s popular Best 373 Colleges, a literary guide to Melbourne, an app that collects reviews of children's books, and an e-bookstore app for kids.
Title: Best 373 Colleges
Publisher/Developer: Princeton Review Books
Available: February 4
Price: Free
Background: The Facebook application is based on information in the Princeton Review's book by the same title.
Interactive features: A quiz suggests types of colleges users may want to consider based on their interests and personality, a dream college location poll, and a book giveaway contest. It also has free virtual gifts users can send to friends.
Title: Melbourne Literary
Publisher/Developer: Sutro Media
Available: Updated February 1
Price: $3.99
Background: The app is a literary guide to Melbourne by Narrelle M. Harris, with 173 entries about books, writers, publishers, bookstores, and literary locales. There are links to online bookstores.
Interactive features: The latest update features 10 new entries, including new books, bookstores, and publishers. There are also two new categories: Prizes and Awards, and New and Updated. Each entry includes a slideshow and text. Some entries have maps.
Title: Kids Book Review
Publisher/Developer: Bigforge
Available: January 11
Price: Free
Background: The app includes reviews of nearly 800 children’s books from the Sacramento Book Review andthe San Francisco Book Review.
Interactive features: Reviews are into Children's (0-8), Tweens (9-12) and Young Adult (13+). There is a favorites folder where users can save information on books they like. A search feature lets users look up specific titles, authors, or illustrators. Users can post favorite reviews or books to their Twitter feeds or Facebook pages directly from the App.
Title: MeeGenius!
Publisher/Developer: MeeGenius!
Available: January 11
Price: Free
Background: An app for an e-bookstore, MeeGenius! includes titles from So Smart, a producer of educational entertainment products for young children. Among the e-books available are Away We Go, Where Do We Sit, What to Wear, Edward’s Kite, and Iggy’s Wagon.
Interactive features: Words are highlighted in yellow as a child reads along. There is also an audio playback feature.
To be included in this listing, please send us the app title, the book or other source for the app (if there is one -- original apps are fine, too), when it was released, price, background of the book (including such info as copies in print, when it was released, awards, and brief plot summary), and the interactive elements of the app. We also need the promo codes. Send all apps to Jim Milliot, and send news of children’s apps to Diane Roback as well.
