The Giant Turnip - A Kidztory Classic animated interactive storybook Review

The Giant Turnip is the most recent story brought to life by the developers at Stepworks. Part of a larger series of classic storybook apps, the tale of The Giant Turnip has its roots in Russian folklore, as does the first app from library - The Little Red Hen.

Here, The Giant Turnip tells the story of a father and mother who together plant a turnip that grows and grows until it is so large that it is impossible for any one person to pull it out of the ground by themselves. Coming to his aid, mother holds onto father, and together they pull but still need more help. One by one, their farm animals hug each other as well, and together they pull and pull until they are successful, demonstrating how “we can do anything when we all work together,” ending this story with a turnip feast, complete with some cute food-related interruptions my son especially enjoyed.

I really like how in this adaptation, the townspeople who try to help dislodge the turnip are now friendly animals, and it is charming how they all hug each other to get the job done.

As always, the look of this app is delightful, with wonderful colors and textures and fun use of music incorporated into a style utterly recognizable as a Kidztory storybook. I appreciate the warm browns and green shades seen in the land where the turnip is planted, along with the noticeable brush strokes for a lovely effect. Possibly more so than other apps from this series, nothing is flat-looking within this app as every animal or other detail has its own imperfect texture that layered together on the page really brings a richness to this story that adults may enjoy even more than their children.

As one can imagine, this story by its nature is repetitious, so it pleases me that what would be considered different camera angles and other editing techniques are used to tell this story, keeping it visually interesting for its readers.

It would have been an obvious choice to simply add each character to the long line of helpers trying to pull up this turnip, demonstrating this from the same vantage point, but instead, this app crosses the director's line a few times as well, showing the line of helpers from behind or facing the opposite direction for a nice effect, also including an interesting use of close-up shots to create a subtle yet cinematic experience that adults will appreciate even if these choices don’t register with children.

As with the other classic storybook apps, one can choose to read this story to oneself or listen to charming narration. Fun interactive hotspots are included as well; do look for them.

It is without reservation that I can recommend this as well as any of the other apps within this series. They are universally wonderful storybook applications that children and their adults will love. Their first app, Red Little Hen, was the first app I bought for my son before he was two years old so these stories have a special place in my heart. Even after all these months, my son still goes back to old favorites, and I love how each of these stories contains a moral that children can learn from.