{"id":11572,"date":"2014-03-01T05:00:07","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T05:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=11572"},"modified":"2014-02-28T04:31:49","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T04:31:49","slug":"happy-seussapalooza-on-ios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/01\/happy-seussapalooza-on-ios\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Seussapalooza on iOS!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"seuss<\/a>Yep, once again it is Dr. Seuss’ birthday! \u00a0If your kids are anything like mine, they’ve been celebrating his birthday all week long. \u00a0March 2nd is officially his birthday, and so the folks who create all Seuss iOS books are putting them all on sale from now until March 6th! \u00a0While they are all at least a buck less, a few are on extra discount. \u00a0And if you caught last years sale and review of all the Seuss titles,<\/a> read on to check out some other great kid books available for iOS…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If you’ve never experienced children’s books on the iPad or iPhone, most operate with similar features. \u00a0Books can either be read aloud by parents or can play a narrator who reads through the story. \u00a0Children can tap on the text on the page to have the narrator read that word, and most items in the art (cars, clouds, trees, etc…) will also be identified vocally when tapped. \u00a0Some books (most of the Oceanhouse Media ones) also have an autoplay feature that will automatically flip the pages if one simply doesn’t have a spare hand to do the chore. \u00a0Again, the Oceanhouse Media ones (Dr. Seuss, and Little \u00a0Critter ones mentioned below) will frequently even have an option for a parent (or other loved one) to store their own narration in the app so little ones can listen to their own parents reading the stories…<\/p>\n

If that description interests you, you can pick up some\u00a0Dr. Seuss books at a discount. \u00a0The greatest discount is found with a few of the most popular titles including:<\/p>\n

The Cat in the Hat
\n<\/strong>Green Eggs and Ham
\n<\/strong>One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
\n<\/strong>Dr. Seuss\u2019s ABC
\n<\/strong>Oh, the Places You’ll Go!<\/strong><\/p>\n

All of which are on sale for only $1 (well, $0.99 but $1 is easier to type…)<\/p>\n

Now, if you’ve already gone and purchased all the Dr. Seuss books you need, there are a couple other book lines out there you may want to check out… \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Little Critter<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>The Dr. Seuss people (Oceanhouse Media) also have a line of books based on the Little Critter franchise. \u00a0As you might guess, they are all short little books about a family of “critters” living in a world filled with anthropomorphic animals (a rhinoceros clerk, a badger policeman, etc…) \u00a0The book titles often begin with the word “Just”, such as Just Me and My Dad, Just Go to Bed, and Just Going to the Dentist. \u00a0All the books talk about a fairly normal day (with some special exception – the title of the book), as written from the perspective of a young child. \u00a0Each book is quite short, so a typical bedtime reading can go through two or three without much trouble. \u00a0My favorite part of the series is looking for a frequently appearing spider, grasshopper, or mouse (depending on the book). \u00a0Children can tap the animal when they see it on the page, and at the end of the story the app tells you how many you found and how many are in the book in total. \u00a0If the Little Critter series sounds interesting, I recommend simply splurging for one (or both) of the Little Critter collections. \u00a0 Collection #1<\/a> and Collection #2 <\/a>both run about $15, but contain 10 different stories (individual Little Critter apps usually go for $2 each.)<\/p>\n

Sandra Boynton<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other line of top-tier children’s books I can recommend are the Sandra Boynton series. \u00a0Known for her short board books containing brightly colored, cute little animal characters going through funny adventures, this series of apps starts ahead of the game with its quality content. \u00a0 Simply taking cute books and putting them on an iPad would have been decent, however (and that’s a big however), the Boynton book apps are so much more than simply a book. \u00a0While the books are totally unchanged in their art, text, even the “feel” of turning the page, they are also enhanced because children can interact with nearly every part of the pictures on the page. \u00a0For example, in The Going to Bed book faucets in the sink can be turned on. \u00a0This causes water to run and soon the screen becomes foggy, requiring one to “wipe it off” with a finger. \u00a0When the tub is activated, bubbles form and float around the page, ready to be popped. \u00a0Even after a dozen readings of the book there will be a little something to play with that you (and your kids) had never seen before. \u00a0To top things off, the vocal talent in the series is exceptional. \u00a0A calm, male voice reads the book (if you select the “read to me” option) with just a hint of emotion – enough to provide an interesting listening experience, but not so much as to distract from the story of make children particularly excited. \u00a0When doing bedtime reading on the iPad, I frequently turn to one of the Boynton books as a “closer” since they are short, fun, and calming.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While an iPad is no substitute for a good, paper book, my boys and I often have a “special” bedtime when the iPad is pulled out and they each get to pick a story. \u00a0They’re also great on trips, I can bring an entire children’s library along on my iPhone or iPad.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yep, once again it is Dr. Seuss’ birthday! \u00a0If your kids are anything like mine, they’ve been celebrating his birthday all week long. \u00a0March 2nd is officially his birthday, and so the folks who create all Seuss iOS books are putting them all on sale from now until March 6th! \u00a0While they are all at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11572"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11578,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11572\/revisions\/11578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}