Goldilocks and the Three Bears Review

Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a universal app that brings another version of this classic story to both iPad and iPhone. One can choose to read the story like a traditional book or listen to this story be narrated, both with automatic page turning as well as being able to turn the pages by oneself.

This is one of my son’s favorite stories, and he has been exposed to many different variations, both as applications as well as in classic storybook form. I like the fact that this app has an antique, period look which stands apart from many of the other versions of this story that we have read. The narration is also very good here, the voice being of an older woman bringing a grandmotherly quality to the tone of this app.

There are some issues, however, that I hope can be fixed in a future update. The text is highlighted as the story is being narrated, but the sound and the highlighting are not in sync with each other, and the wrong word is often focused on as the story is being read, which is distracting and confusing, especially to children who are new readers. The text is at times awkwardly spaced. Many words run together without proper spaces between each word, or there are multiple spaces used unnecessarily, making it hard to read, even for an adult. I also found that when the story is read by oneself, it is not clear that scrolling down through the paragraphs of text is needed, making is possible to miss some of the story this way.

These problems seem to bother me more than they do my son, who does stays engaged throughout listening to this story and chooses this app often. I wish I could simply turn off the words altogether and listen to this story without any distractions. I look forward to the flaws in this app being worked out.