Earlier this month, I received an email from Sean, the the creator of O Story Story which is a series of digital picture books developed for preschool aged children after I saw their pitch on Twitter. After some email exchange between us, I was offered the opportunity to review their app! Anyway, my review as below...
* Title: Wendy's Giant List
* Price: $2.99
* Category: Entertainment
* Updated: Nov 10, 2011
* Version: 1.0.3
* Size: 62.2 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Endemol USA, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.
Description from the product page:
"Wendy’s Giant List is a wonderfully fun interactive picture book for pre-K children. The story contains 26 pages of beautifully hand drawn illustration, nearly a hundred interactive touch points and an embedded match game. Narration is accompanied by highlighted words to reinforce word recognition. Developed to support the young reader. This story is sure to please kids and parents alike! "
During our first try with this app, Ben lost his attention within 5 seconds and goes on to play with his other toys. I continued on with the app myself and realised why Ben reacted that way. He does not get the connection as the main character in this app is a little girl. No, we're not being sexist, just that Ben reacts better if the character is a boy or has boy stuff in it (cars, trains, robots etc)
I tried the app again with him a week later (under the Read to Me mode) and voila, he sat still and listened to the story from the beginning till the end. I kept his attention on the app by asking him to point out objects in the page as story goes along.
Ben enjoying the story...
Ben even repeated some of the things mentioned in the story like when Wendy's mum asked her whether she's ready for her nap, and Ben said 'Mummy asked nap?'. I was surprised that he listened attentively and tried to repeat what he heard.
Later in the day, we tried the app under 'I Can Read' mode and there are more things to be discovered! Objects with a small heart icon on it can be touched and will display either the sound or actions. Really cute!
What's good?
* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch the objects in each page on the screen.
* I like the storyline of how many things this little girl by the name of Wendy did before she finally got ready for her nap, kinda like my toddler, so I guess in that way, my toddler can relate himself to Wendy hehehe...
* I totally heart the illustrations, simple hand drawing but has a very whimsical feel.
* I also like the matching game that comes along with this app and Ben is slowly getting the hang of this game.
Room for Improvement?
* I would prefer if the animation moves slower in the 'Read to Me' mode.
To summarise this review, I'd say this app is going to last for a long time on our iPad as there are so many things to be discovered over and over again everytime you go through the book! I can't wait for their next series to come out and hopefully will be given the opportunity to review them too! *hint*hint*
You can purchase the " Wendy's Giant List " app from the iTunes App Store.
I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"
