You Can’t Scare Me! - a cute and funny Halloween costume story for kids by Wendy Wax Review

You Can’t Scare Me! is a simple, cute and fun rhyming story about a girl getting ready for Halloween who tells all the kids dressed up in costumes she encounters how she can’t get scared, until she gets a fright while looking in the mirror. Versions are available for both iPad as well as iPhone.

Parents may have interest in sharing this app with the youngest members of the family, as babies and toddlers can enjoy the children dressed up in costumes, as well as the bright colors and mild interactive hotspots found within this book.

The collage-like illustrations contain photographic elements that will be enjoyable to young children as they pop among the other elements.

Parents will notice the heavy use of photo editing tools and other graphic design tricks to create a stylized effect that may come across as new and dynamic to very young children while introducing them to the classic characters found at Halloween.

Narration is included, as is the chance to read this book to oneself, and it is nice that the words, highlighted when listening, can be tapped individually to be heard when reading this app independently.

Another interesting feature is that readers can not only record their own narration, but also include added lines of text. Although I don’t think this new feature will be implemented in many of the other Auryn apps based on narrative-adapted storybooks, I can see that older children would enjoy including their own lines of text, be it scary or silly, as well as creating their own narration.

Two extras are included, a matching game where players flip over tiles to look for matches, as well as a Spot the Difference section.

A magnifying glass is included in the matching section that can be used when a single title is turned over, as a tap of this icon will highlight a handful of tiles where the corresponding piece is hidden, making this game simpler for children.

The Spot the Difference section contains three puzzles. As is typical, an image is duplicated on each half of the screen, but there are ten details that are different from one side to another.

I appreciate how one can tap either side of this puzzle for answers to register, and that a hint button can be tapped as often as needed. I did find an occasional object to be tricky, however and the hints, when needed, can be rather vague. I would love to see a continued tap to narrow down the area one should look at.

Having said this, this app is cute and fun for babies and toddlers. Although being scared is the theme of this tale, nothing included is scary, making this a good choice for the youngest app users. Older children in preschool will enjoy the extra activities, and siblings can also have fun recording their own text and narration.