DreamWorks’ popular computer animated film, How to Train Your Dragon, has spawned a recent summer movie sequel as well as an animated series on television.  Now your kids can enjoy a digital storybook based on the characters and settings from the franchise.  It’s available for download on iOS devices, but reviewed on iPad here.

The first thing you’ll do is set up a profile.  Younger readers may need help with this, as you must type in your name, choose a gender for your dragon trainer, and reading skill level.  There are three profiles you can make, so the whole family will be able to enjoy the book.  There are three reading skill age levels as well: Under 5, 6 to 8, or 9 and above.  Higher reading levels add more words and vocabulary.  You can change the reading skill level at any time.

The narrative in the story is set in the second person, meaning that the narrator refers to the reader as a character in the story.  So your child will feel like they are part of the action with boy Hiccup and his dragon friend Toothless.  In the story, the reader’s character finds him or herself in a shipwreck and suffering from amnesia.  Hiccup and Toothless rescue you and notice you are clutching a dragon egg.  In the rest of the story, you’ll help hatch the dragon egg and chase down and make friends with your new runaway baby dragon.

The story is told in five short chapters, which you can select on a map.  The story is lengthy enough that you might be able to make two bedtime stories out of it.  After you finish the first book, the game promises that later you can download a second book where you’ll be able to name your baby dragon and go on your first mission from Hiccup to find new dragon species.  But that part wasn’t available yet for this review.  There is a small bit of interactivity in the story, like a mini-game where you can play fetch with Toothless.

To advance the story, all you have to do is swipe the screen from right to left with your finger, like you’re turning a page in a book.  The only problem I had with this storybook is that sometimes this action wasn’t as responsive as I wanted it to be.  And usually when the page is done, a finger will move telling you to turn the page.  But sometimes it doesn’t do that, and I would get confused for a short while, wondering if I needed to do anything else to advance the story.  Just know that when in doubt, just swipe your finger right to left.

It also would’ve been nice if there was a feature that would read the words if you tapped them with your finger.  You can turn off the narration, music, and sound effects, though.  One last thing is that as you complete a chapter, you can unlock pages in a journal that your character writes to help explain his or her past.  But the journal is set at the highest reading level always, and with no narration, so younger readers may need an older sibling or parent to read it to them.

While digital storybooks are neat, I don’t think they’ll ever fully replace actually sitting down with your kids with a real book where you physically turn pages and point at words to read them.  I think that’s a very important thing for all parents to do with their kids, as it helps them bond and teaches them how to read and take care of books.  That’s how I learned how to read anyway.  At any rate, the DreamWorks Press: Dragons storybook is still one of the better digital storybooks I’ve reviewed.  Kids love dragons, and they’ll enjoy being part of the story, especially if they like the How to Train Your Dragon movies.

Tags: Game Reviews, Movies with Children, Television