Tag: Digital storybook »

Bedtime for Sarah Sullivan is a children’s storybook that emphasizes the importance of going to bed, dreams, and those magical moments right before being tucked in.

Now Kelly Paniagua, author of the award-winning children's book, is planning to bring an interactive story app based on the very same bedtime story to the App Store. Very soon, in fact. Bedtime for Sarah Sullivan marks the first in a planned series of ten, and the intention is to release an app shortly after each title goes to print.

The Bedtime for Sarah Sullivan app includes pretty much everything parents would want in an interactive bedtime story: narration, highlighted text to aid with reading along, character voices (supplied by Paniagua’s own daughter as well as her husband, Julian McMahon), animations, and of course some interactive bits. A couple of mini-games have also been included. One involves flying through space collecting ingredients for baking cookies (finishing the game also reveals a recipe for “Galaxy Cookies”), while the other is about finding hidden animals and learning about nocturnal versus diurnal behavior.

What’s most intriguing about Bedtime for Sarah Sullivan is the special Coloring Activity. It’s actually based on Dr. Wayne Dyer’s theory about how what we see, do, and think about right before bed (about 30 minutes or so) can affect both our dreams and our mood when we wake up. Paniagua wanted to know, “What if you implemented this at a developmental age?”

The idea is for children to use their imagination and draw up something right before bed, and an “Idea Generator” is also available if they have trouble thinking of something. What they draw and/or the mood it puts them in (preferably happy) should, in theory, have an impact on their dreams. Drawings can be saved from within the app to your device’s camera roll for easy sharing, too.

Bedtime for Sarah Sullivan is available on the App Store right now for $2.99 (no in-app purchases). If you’re interested in the physical book as well, you can pick it up in stores now for $13.95.

Yawns, as we all know, are contagious. But getting a round of them going for preschoolers at bedtime or nap time isn’t easy. Dr. Seuss and Oceanhouse Media, the iOS publishers of his catalog, have something that might help make little ones sleepy, and certainly will entertain them, while teaching them pre-reading skills on the side.

Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book tracks a single yawn that spreads to "Seussian” characters ninety-nine zillion, nine trillion and three times over. Now that should be enough to get even the most stubborn child’s lids drooping a little.

Like all digital children’s books in the Ohm Books catalog, the app is universal and focuses its attention where Mr. Geisel would want it – on the story. The artwork is the original, of course, and there are very few features distracting or detracting from it. What digital goodies there are focus on pre-reading skills like word-object association. There are three reading modes from fully automated and professionally narrated, to read-alone with tappable words to learn how to pronounce them with a minimum of frustration.