Usborne Sticker Dolly Dressing Review

Usborne Sticker Dolly Dressing is an iPad app based on the popular Usborne Sticker Dolly Dressing books filled with stickers that one could use to decorate each page, as these books come in a wide range of themes which children enjoy, such as "wedding" or "vacation."

Here, children have the choice of five virtual dolls to dress, and five included themes, such as a wedding, disco, beach, or stable. Enjoy selecting dolls for these scenes, dressing them up with an abundant supply of clothing and shoe choices, as well as a nice selection of animal, objects and foods that one can add to further decorate these themes.

I really enjoy the look of this app as it is colorful and quite pretty visually with a lot of nice details in each of these sections, also including music or ambient sound effects that correspond with the theme in question. I know my son would have liked to interact more with the elements of this app, but I think he was confused by the differently interactive dollhouse apps that he enjoys, and kids who understand what is being offered here will truly enjoy this application.

The gameplay here is intuitive as one can easily first choose a doll to focus on, then an area to decorate with a tap. Once this is done, have fun exploring all the clothing and accessory options available. It is also really fun to see the dolls dressed up in different outfits each time one goes back to this first page to decorate a new theme, giving young sticker stylists cute fashion tips. Both parents as well as children will appreciate the selection of clothing as they are all very fun, wearable clothing ideas, some of which I would wear if they came in my size. They are in good taste and appropriate for girls to imitate, including the use of a bandeau bra for the chest area of these dolls found as one changes tops, which is also seen peeking out of some v neck choices like a tank top or camisole. I do wish, however, that the tops could be layered as a few leave the midriff exposed - not a big deal from my point-of-view, but some parents may prefer to have these pieces used as short jackets or cardigans over other tops instead of having only the option of wearing these tops alone. Also, maybe leggings of some sort could be added to layer with as well as a few of the skirt choices are perhaps a little short for some parents' tastes, but from my prospective still an appropriate length for girls to comfortably wear.

I also wish the accessories, although many fun choices are included, were also more open-ended. For example, one can only place the purses in the right hands of the dolls, to the disappointment of south-pawed players, I am sure, and the sunglasses can only be placed over one's eyes - not on the head as one may choose. Although the dragging and dropping of these clothing pieces and other choices for the most part will be easy for children to do themselves, some of the hat choices are unforgiving in terms of placement, and some kids may need to ask for adult help.

It is nice that ultimately one can have each doll within a theme, but it would be fun to have the option of having twins or other multiples possible. I do like, however, that one can re-use the clothing - good to know as I decorate the wedding theme complete with matching dresses for my bride's attendants, and I have had a lot of fun selecting different patterns and textures for my clothing choices, adding a tremendous amount of variety for children to choose from, but I would love to see these choices be extended to the shoes and hats as well.

Kids will also delight in decorating these scenes with the additional stickers that can nicely be re-used infinitely, as I filled my wedding page with birds and butterflies, but it would be nice if the clothing itself could also be used as sticker accessories to dress the mannequins found in the shopping theme.

The most important inclusion here is that one can alter the skin tone and choose the hair color of each of these dolls, creating a nice multi-ethnic experience, and I like that these dolls' de-fault skin tones also vary in terms of color and include some non-Caucasian doll choices. I do think that the scale used here to darken and lighten the complexion of these dolls could be broader in terms of color selection as there are women and girls who are naturally lighter than what is offered, and there is not a truly dark skin tone available - an option that I would expect to see from an app that is already putting itself out there in terms of providing different skin tone choices. In keeping with this issue, it would also be nice if some hair options were what one may expect for non-Caucasian hair, possibly including naturally textured, curly hair or braid choices, which is not the case as the hair choices here are of straight hair styled differently and with different hue choices.

Having said this, this app is one of the best dress-up apps I have seen, based on the sheer amount of sticker choices and lovely palette of bright colors, fun patterns to mix and match and fashionable clothing choices available. This app will appeal to both fans of these books as well as others new to this series. When I first saw the name of this app, I instantly recognized Usborne as a wonderful, prolific publisher of children's books. I hope to see more of their titles turned into applications.