This week brings apps based on Finding Nemo and Dora the Explorer’s new musical special; an app for kids to learn about world landmarks; a collection of illustrated children’s books; and an app from cartoonist Phil Yeh.
Title: Finding Nemo: My Puzzle Book
Publisher/Developer: Disney Publishing Worldwide
Available: March 17
Price: $0.99
Background: Readers can follow the underwater adventure as Marlin searches for Nemo on his first day of school.
Interactive features: llustrations, sound effects, and background music based on Disney/Pixar’s Finding Nemo. Kids can record their own voice, play with four interactive jigsaw puzzles, and go on a scavenger hunt to collect fish tank treasures throughout the story to decorate the aquarium at the story’s end.
Title: Dora’s Ballet Adventure
Publisher/Developer: Nickelodeon and Budge Studios
Available: March 11
Price: iPad $2.99; iPhone, iPod Touch $1.99
Background: The app is based on the primetime musical special of the same name, which premiered March 14 on Nickelodeon.
Interactive features: Interactive activities and mini-games designed for preschoolers teach reading and allow preschoolers to follow along with Dora’s voice, read by themselves, or have the story read to them, all while learning Spanish words and phrases.
Title: Kids and Home
Publisher/Developer: RedactiePartners
Available: March 11
Price: $0.99
Background: This original app lays out an adventure for kids in which they travel the world in search of their home, learning about world landmarks along the way.
Interactive features: There is a narrator, sound effects, and music; users can build, sketch, color, decorate, save, and share their buildings; 35+ coloring brushes; 250+ stickers.
Title: StorySmyth Tales
Publisher/Developer: StorySmyth Ventures Ltd
Available: March 10
Price: $4.99 each
Background: StorySmyth Ventures licensed a collection of illustrated children’s story books from Oxford University Press, including Hurry Up and Slow Down by Layn Marlow, Just Like Tonight by Amber Stuart and Layn Marlow, and Scruff Sheep by Caroline Jayne Church.
Interactive features: A 3D CGI storyteller, the StorySmyth, who lives in a fairytale cottage surrounded by his collection of children’s story books, tells the stories.
Title: Dinosaurs Across America
Publisher/Developer: TWP Digital Solution
Available: February 28
Price: $9.99
Background: Dinosaurs Across America is one of cartoonist Phil Yeh's most popular comics and has sold 190,000 copies (NBM Publishing, 2007).
Interactive features: Kids can use a jigsaw puzzle of a U.S. map, placing states in the correct places, which brings up pages containing Yeh's illustrations of dinosaurs sharing nuggets of American history trivia.
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. Send all apps and promo codes to Jim Milliot, and send news of children’s apps to Diane Roback as well.
