High production values and a story-centered design give this a leg up over flashier, more game-like e-books.
Potter’s tale of a hapless frog who sets out to catch a minnow for dinner and almost ends up being dinner himself gets several useful extras in this unabridged app. It also receives a design upgrade that increases the original’s cramped trim size and eliminates its blank pages while pairing text and pictures more closely together.
There are three reading options: silent; read aloud in a pleasantly measured and low-key way by a female narrator with a British accent; and, through an online connection, a mode that allows an absent parent or other reader to be the voice and to turn the pages remotely. This last option even includes a button that enables two-way conversations. The illustrations are sharply detailed, clear of hue and expandable with a touch to full-screen size. There is little animation (a dragonfly here, a water bug there), but touching some figures produces an audio tag. A coloring book and connect-the-dots activity complement the story. A retractable navigation bar at the bottom provides thumbnail images of each page of the tale for easy skipping around, plus a button to open the table of contents. The remote Buddy mode requires a relatively involved prior setup, but it should prove a boon to families with absent parents.
High production values and a story-centered design give this a leg up over flashier, more game-like e-books. (iPad storybook app. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Sideways Software
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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