Yep, once again it is Dr. Seuss’ birthday!  If your kids are anything like mine, they’ve been celebrating his birthday all week long.  March 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!  While they are all at least a buck less, a few are on extra discount.  And if you caught last years sale and review of all the Seuss titles, read on to check out some other great kid books available for iOS…

If you’ve never experienced children’s books on the iPad or iPhone, most operate with similar features.  Books can either be read aloud by parents or can play a narrator who reads through the story.  Children 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.  Some 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.  Again, the Oceanhouse Media ones (Dr. Seuss, and Little  Critter 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…

If that description interests you, you can pick up some Dr. Seuss books at a discount.  The greatest discount is found with a few of the most popular titles including:

The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Dr. Seuss’s ABC
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

All of which are on sale for only $1 (well, $0.99 but $1 is easier to type…)

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…  

Little Critter

The Dr. Seuss people (Oceanhouse Media) also have a line of books based on the Little Critter franchise.  As 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…)  The 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.  All 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.  Each book is quite short, so a typical bedtime reading can go through two or three without much trouble.  My favorite part of the series is looking for a frequently appearing spider, grasshopper, or mouse (depending on the book).  Children 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.  If the Little Critter series sounds interesting, I recommend simply splurging for one (or both) of the Little Critter collections.   Collection #1 and Collection #2 both run about $15, but contain 10 different stories (individual Little Critter apps usually go for $2 each.)

Sandra Boynton

The other line of top-tier children’s books I can recommend are the Sandra Boynton series.  Known 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.   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.  While 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.  For example, in The Going to Bed book faucets in the sink can be turned on.  This causes water to run and soon the screen becomes foggy, requiring one to “wipe it off” with a finger.  When the tub is activated, bubbles form and float around the page, ready to be popped.  Even 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.  To top things off, the vocal talent in the series is exceptional.  A 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.  When 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.

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.  They’re also great on trips, I can bring an entire children’s library along on my iPhone or iPad.

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