Bean Bag Kids: Little Red Riding Hood Review
Bean Bag Kids: Little Red Riding Hood is a cute universal app which retells the classic story of the same name, about a trusting young girl who meets an antagonist wolf in the woods out to do her harm. Both English and Spanish languages are choices, and one can both listen to a narrator and follow along with the text that is nicely highlighted underneath when read out loud.
This app is different from other Riding Hood stories that my son and I have seen, as this is more a story within a story. Here, the Bean Bag kids are putting on a play - Red Riding Hood - an aspect I enjoy. I also really like the narration which is very well done here. The story itself is kept close to the classic tale, but without the violence typically seen in the classic re-telling of Riding Hood.
The look of this app is highly computer-generated and in 3D. Personally, I am a fan of more hand-drawn illustrations, but I did get used to the style of this story book the second time I looked at this app and can now appreciate this app's style and what it has to offer, especially for kids who are into 3D effects. I do especially like effect that tipping the device from side to side has, as this makes the 3D pop very nicely.
Be sure to check out all angles of this story, looking for and tapping the hidden yellow stars that one finds on each page as finding them all will unlock the bios of all the bean bag kids, my favorite part of this application.
I have had a lot of fun reading the bios of these bean characters, especially seeing them remove their costumes, showing the basic bean bag underneath they start with. The info provided about each of them is also super-cute. I believe that this is the first of many performances by these bean bag kids; now that I am accustomed to the way this app looks, I am interested to see what other performances they come up with.