Robert Sherman, 1925-2012

Just saw that the legendary songwriter Robert Sherman, who influenced so many childhoods, has passed away. I've written about his music before, so maybe the most fitting thing to do is listen to some of his work. (Forgive the sing-along captions).

And the crown jewel:

Milkshake's Kickstarter Campaign

Regular readers (you know who you are) know that I'm a big Milkshake fan. At our house they're some of our favorite music, and we're not alone: their last album, Great Day in 2009, was nominated for the best children's album Grammy. They've kept busy with some singles and a full concert tour since then, and now they're returning to the recording studio for a new full-length album called Got a Minute?. The concept's simple: make a compilation of over thirty songs that each last under two minutes. The idea sprang from a series of songs they did a few years ago for PBS KIDS, and those tracks that are already done are superb, as you can hear for yourself.

But a new album's expensive, and the band launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds. There are only a couple days left to reach the goal of a mere $14,000, so it's up to all of us who love quality children's music to pitch in. $15 gets you a pre-order of the album, so you're definitely getting your money's worth--plus helping make it available for everyone else. Please go to their Kickstarter page and spread the word as fast as you can--just a few days left!

A Look at Disney's Magazines

I've reviewed a few apps in recent months and as I've been looking at ebooks and writing interactive samples myself my attention's gone back a great deal to traditional print material. It generally seems that as digital material proliferates that print will play an increasingly diminished role in the media pie--for children and adults--but I think that it's actually because of the multitude of electronic options that paper-based media will come to hold increased importance for readers. We're still an app-free household, for better or worse, but it's great to see Loretta's eyes light up whenever a National Geographic Kids magazine arrives or we take little Izzy into the library.

With that in mind I had a great time going through some of the latest issues of Disney's print magazines (or we all did, actually). The Disney magazine family includes Disney Princess, Disney/Pixar Cars, Disney Fairies, Phineas and Ferb, and Disney Junior Magazine. They're all based on pre-existing properties, obviously, a target the respective demographics of each one. While girls tend to like fairies & princesses and boys like cars (it was the only magazine Loretta had no interest in), both the Phineas and Ferb and Disney Junior magazines cater well to both genders, just like their programs on TV; for the latter magazine that's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Little Einsteins, Handy Manny, Secret Agent Oso, and Jungle Junction, all of which play well to both boys and girls.

All the magazines have a good variety of material. No prose fiction, but comics, games, and activities, in different proportions, and they each have a foldout poster at the center, a really great example of something an app will never do. Disney Junior leans almost entirely toward interactive material; there are pages about matching, colors, shapes, counting, etc., as well as a board game or two. The issue I read was all about health and nutrition, so it included recipes as well. Cars and especially Phineas both have a lot of show trivia (Cars, I guess, is as much about the actual cars as Cars, I or II), and Phineas, which had the most regular typed material of all the magazines, also had "extra-curricular" material like facts about actual platypuses. Trivia is the kind of stuff die-hard fans--the kids who would subscribe to something like this--would want, and I was actually a little shocked I didn't know it all (I mean, I thought I knew every Doofenshmirtz jingle!). This issue also had a cut-out paper theater, another low-tech toy possible in a print medium that reminded me of the magazines of my childhood--and which kids can still enjoy today.

Loretta, who turned eight last month, was very into the Fairies magazine, which was centered all around the recent "Pixie Hollow Games" television special, although it had less comics than we both expected. She read all the comics it had, though, and gave a thorough look through to everything else. Just like with the retail merchandise the Princess magazine skews a little younger than the Fairies, and even though much of it was over her head my two-year-old Isabelle actually really got into this one. This magazine was animal-themed, and Izzy loved having us read the comic about when Ariel (as a human) got a horse, or when Snow White lost hers. There were puppies, fish, and other animals, and Izzy loved looking at them all--she stared at the poster of Snow White and her "woodland friends" forever, and she even did one of the cut-out activities with us.

The magazine editors aren't ignorant they're pushing a print product in a digital world. There are tie-ins to past episodes, promotions for upcoming events like Peter Pan's appearance on Jake and the Never Land Pirates, and the extension of storyworlds in lots of directions, like human Ariel getting a horse or Meap returning to visit Phineas and Ferb. What's missing are stories that originate in print and move online for exclusive gaming through a URL or QR code or something; but while maybe that's the future of integrating print and digital content, as a parent I'm more pleased to see my daughters interacting with a strictly single medium product. I want them to know what it's like to flip, rather than scroll, through a magazine, to browse something, dog-ear a page, cut things out, and store it on a shelf rather than a hard drive. These aren't just quaint practices, I don't think, but are integral to how we read and how the mind processes information. They're digital natives and I'm not worried about them not adjusting to contemporary technology, but I certainly don't think it will make them Luddites to also be familiar with--and love--print, and how things like tables of contents work. Disney may get a lot of criticism for charging subscriptions to what many may deem multi-page advertisements for its TV shows, but it's pushing to grow its magazine division at a time when dozens of children's magazines are dying, it's incorporating curriculum into its titles for younger children, its giving them a periodic surprise in their mailbox that's good for patience and maturation, and it's giving kids something tactile to read and store. For many they may be big ads, sure, but for others, like reluctant readers, the movies and shows may be their gateway into reading via these magazines--I could see the Cars mag do that quite a bit, in fact.

I guess this has turned a bit into a defense of magazines, which isn't what I had in mind. The content within the Disney magazines I've seen is really good, and I just wanted to talk a little bit about why parents should make magazines like these a priority for their kids.

New Yorker on Children's Television

Just a note that this week's issue has a story about the current renaissance in children's TV. It's in print only, but here's the abstract. Just in time for this year's Kidscreen. Looks like it has strong nods to Wonder Pets and Phineas and Ferb, with Dora being held up as the archetype for the last decade.

The New Coviewing at the Cooney Center

Monday night Women in Children's Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center cosponsored an event at Sesame Workshop showcasing the center's newest study, "The New Coviewing: Designing for Learning through Joint Media Engagement." You can download a pdf of the study here--it's the center's first study published exclusively online; this not only saves trees but also allows for some cool interactive features impossible in paper. (Mac users should use Acrobat rather than Preview.)

Now last night I spent just over an hour writing what I thought was a really thorough review of the event and the report; that got deleted when I tried to post it, and I'm not able right now to rewrite the entire post. (Frustrated with google!) But the most important thing I can say is to read the actual report itself. The design guide will be an excellent resource for content creators of all stripes: it contains great, research-backed advice about how to design media that will maximize the opportunities parents have to interact with their children while using/viewing your product. Like I wrote at the very outset of this blog several years ago, smart parents will look for those opportunities anyhow, so it's savvy of producers to maximize that potential in our products.

One great example of this that I wanted to mention is the new Electric Company video game "Electric Racer." You can download this for free at the show's website. It's basically a phonics game couched stealthily in a racing game. That in and of itself is worthwhile for kids in its target 6-9 demo, but it goes further by involving parents as well. Kids man the arrow keys to steer the car while parents use the mouse to unscramble words and give their kids additional speed. It's a great example of media designed to foster collaboration and learning through "joint media engagement," or JME.

So to be brief, what are some pointers for maximizing JME? Check out the report for full discussions, but here are some bullet points:

* Make it kid-driven

* Provide multiple planes of engagement

* Ensure differentiation of roles; parents shouldn't be backseat driving the kids' task

* "Scaffold to scaffold," meaning you should make it easy to engage with immediately; parents shouldn't need a lot of prep

* Previous/Next -- build on prior experience and prepare for future experiences, within your own brand or elsewhere

* Co-creation -- like old Lego, give the kids the tools and let them build their world the way they want; allow parents the tools to collaborate but not dominate

* Fit -- make sure it fits well into daily routines, otherwise it won't get used

* Collaborate, don't compete; it's never good to pit parents against kids, at least not in educational media

Wish I had time to repeat some of the other great points. Perhaps the best lesson is for people to get in tune with what WICM is doing, either on their website or through their twitter feed (@wicmnyc), for future events and writing groups. They're a great resource and another joy of working in children's media in NYC.

**

NOTE: To the PBSKids.org IT team, "Electric Racer" isn't downloading (with Safari). Any thoughts?

Inside Sesame Street

Happy new year! I've been writing on my other blog so I'm glad to have a reason to post here again, and a really good reason it is (and it's not even the upcoming BAM Kids Film Festival--though I wanted to mention that). Last night ASIFA-East and SVA hosted a panel called "Inside Sesame Street." The four panelists were Louis Mitchell, an Associate Design Director of Special Projects (more on that later); Margot Duffy, a producer of "Sesame Street English" (that too); Marcus Pauls, a producer of digital media; and Nikon Kwantu, a digital media and animation producer; it was organized and chaired by Justin Simonich.

Justin began with a quick history of the show, including a 2-3-minute television spot from 1969 announcing the show for the first time. Rowlf the dog is in charge of the whole thing, but it's Kermit who comes up with the title "Sesame Street," "because it's going to open up whole new worlds to these kids. You know, like 'Open Sesame.'" That was a gem that's apparently not online, so it was great to be able to see it.

Then we moved into a discussion of each panelist's position and recent projects. If there were any over-riding themes, the most prominent was what a wonderful opportunity it is to work for Sesame Workshop. Everyone was really enthused to be able to work with these classic characters, new media and formats, and the expectations of the brand. Louis Mitchell was particularly explanatory about how much of a dream come true it is to be working on the Street; during the day yesterday he was attending a shoot with Kevin Clash for a new Elmo project, and he talked about how fulfilling it is to be able to sit down on the most famous stoop in the world and work out production problems, or do things that naysayers claimed could never be done, like transport the Snuffy puppet for a photo shoot or introduce him into teen licensing and merchandise. That enthusiasm and optimism was probably the best part of the evening for me--I'm using its momentum to push me through all these video projects and finally get randyastle.com back up and running--and it's evident in this 2009 interview that Louis gave The Muppet Mindset, or in this photo (which we saw and is actually a full-body shot, taken after shipping the giant Muppet to his first L&M photo shoot).

A second theme was the protection/projection of the Sesame brand that I just mentioned. Louis does a lot of this as he vets everything from scripts to DVD covers. He does the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons and floats, and talked about how one Super Grover pose was too heroic, when in fact "he's an idiot," so he redesigned it to look more bumbling. (The original character designers, in passing him the baton years ago, emphasized that each character was created to exemplify certain preschool character traits, and the most important thing--for characterizations and curriculum--is to ensure that the characters remain true to that purpose. Grover, then, may be bumbling but he's never down on himself, he's the eternal optimist. That's what Super Grover as well as Regular Grover teaches, which may be why he was my favorite as a kid.) But with the property in so many territories and existing in so many media--print, live, interactive, etc. etc.--the brand is more than just something that concerns individual artists; it's enshrined in the culture of Sesame Workshop, with lots of levels of review to ensure that the brand--and the responsibility in implies toward parents and kids--is maintained. As Louis said, "All the new media have to connect back to the show." One department with a lot of sway there is called ER&O--Education, Research, and Outreach--and it got a lot of both wry and appreciative shout outs during the evening.

This, of course, implies the third theme of the evening, that the bureaucracy at the Street has really increased over the years. Gone are the days of carte blanche commissions to freelance animators, for instance, and any project can expect a litany of notes all the way through postproduction and even broadcast--tweaks might still be made on something that's already aired. But notes on curriculum, story, music, and other components are no strangers to children's media, and Nick, Disney, and CN probably aren't any different.

Here are some other items:

* One major project for Digital Media is the next Xbox Kinect game. Just like television was an emerging medium in 1966, so are gaming consoles today, with over 50% of American households owning one. The motion sensors of the Kinect make it ideal for preschoolers who don't have the fine motor skills to operate other devices, and Marcus Pauls talked about how they were going back and using forty years' worth of archival footage and make what was always an interactive show truly interactive, with player/viewer involvement affecting what goes on on screen. Loretta and I tried to go to a publicity event for the launch of the "Once Upon a Monster" game a few months ago but we couldn't get from her school to the venue in the pouring rain in time, so I can't really say much else about it. Here's a little trailer, though.

It's a long-term partnership with Microsoft, though, and the new game(s) are in post now; Marcus said they recently finished a seventeen-day shoot for the original content for the game, which consists of eight episodes.

* Ebooks are also a growing medium. The classic The Monster at the End of This Book just launched for handheld devices, and lots others are underway. I had a chance conversation with an editor at Sesame publishing earlier this week and she said the same thing, that ebooks are growing but they're committed to maintain print publishing as well.

* Digital Media has forty in-house employees, but it's producer-driven so they still look for outside freelance talent. You get those jobs by networking, putting out your own stuff, etc.-all the traditional methods.

* I didn't realize this, but Abby's Flying Fairy School (animated by Speakeasy in New Jersey) is actually Sesame's first transmedia project. Each episode, as seen in the middle of every Sesame Street episode, is written so that it has five points where, online, kids can enter the story and interact with it. I'll definitely be checking that out. You can do that here--so much for the rest of my work day.

* Margot Duffy's been working on a project called "Sesame Street English," which is basically a Street-based curriculum for teaching English as a second language, for 3-12-year-olds. The client is in Japan, but this could work for other territories too. Aging it up for middle schoolers was a challenge, even with Japan's increased acceptance of bright animation for older kids and adults (the program is 100% animated, I forget if with Flash or html5, all done locally here in the NY area). In fact, that leads me to a point Nikon Kwantu wanted to make, which is that

* Sesame Street is really a bastion of the New York animation (and puppetry) community. It's been here over forty years and it's kept people working. Economically, it's a major part of the filmmaking community here.

* Cookie Monster is #1 in the teen market. Mr. Snuffleupagus is #2. Who is #3?

* One thing impeding transmedia is its cost, especially since the Street's a union show. There's a push-pull effect between legacy (the term for maintaining the brand and the feeling of the show from the past 41 years) and moving into transmedia and new platforms.

* Everyone at Sesame Workshop wants to hire people with interactive experience. If you want to work with them know Flash, html5, ebooks, interactivity, etc. Stay up to date.

* Louis Mitchell has an online school for artists and creatives.

* Operating Muppets is hard. Kevin Clash and others travel to each of the 21 international coproductions (or those puppeteers come to Astoria) to train the puppeteers in the "Muppet Way." Carrol Spinney is particularly amazing: the Japanese 'Big Bird' has fainted from heat exhaustion inside his suit, and the Brazilian performer has kept a chiropractor on set because the costume is so demanding, but, as Margot pointed out, Spinney has conducted entire symphonies in character, keeping his arm up in the head the entire time. Big Bird is 8' 2", I believe they said, and that's a lot of bird. And his Oscar is pretty amazing too, of course.

* Just because you work for the Street doesn't mean to get to visit the Street. You can work there for years and never set foot on the set at Kaufman Astoria. That makes sense, but my own dream, I think, would be to stand in front of Hooper's Store and reach out and touch Oscar's trash can. Some day...

**

I've talked to other children's television producers who have a decidedly low opinion of Sesame Street, citing its snarkiness and its obsession with celebrity cameos, parodies of grown-up films, and asides to adult viewers--none of which enrich the experience for the intended viewers, kids. But to hear the commitment, dedication, and technical and artistic standards of each of the panelists--and all of their coworkers--shows me that Sesame Street is no dinosaur. It's been on the air this long for a reason, and it's still an excellent show with exacting standards and some of the best artists in television. My Isabelle, who's almost 2 1/2, has now largely stopped watching In the Night Garden. Instead we've added Blue's Clues to her repertoire, but her favorite program is clearly "Mumo," her name for Elmo and, by extension, the whole show. There's a reason it's her favorite: the craftsmanship shows on the air, and that's what the entire organization of Sesame Workshop exists for. Thanks to Justin Simonich, ASIFA, and the panelists for an enlightening and encouraging evening.

Best Animated Films of 2011

I just published a post over at Filmmaker Magazine about the best animated films of the year, both for kids and adults. Check it out.

FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman App

While we're on the subject of apps, here's one that I totally missed a month ago when it was released. It's FETCH! Lunch Rush, and here's the Nov. 14 press release:

PBS KIDS Launches Its First Educational Augmented Reality App

Furthering PBS’s leadership in using new technologies to support learning, FETCH! Lunch Rush App employs augmented reality to teach kids addition and subtraction

ARLINGTON, VA, Nov. 14, 2011 – PBS KIDS today announced its first augmented reality app for iPhone and iPod touch, FETCH! Lunch Rush, which is now available on the App Store. Available for free, the app uses the camera on iPhone or iPod touch to overlay computer-generated graphics on top of the physical, real-world environment. Extending PBS’s leadership in using augmented reality as an educational tool, FETCH! Lunch Rush opens a new world of learning by teaching kids ages six to eight math skills, like addition and subtraction, while blending the virtual and real world into a truly engaging experience.

“Augmented reality is becoming a popular marketing tool and a compelling feature for gamers, but no one has fully explored what this could mean for educating children,” said Jason Seiken, Senior Vice President, Interactive, Product Development and Innovation, PBS. “We were among the first to offer educational augmented reality kids content when we launched the DINOSAUR TRAIN Hatching Party online game last year, in which a player’s real world intersects with a virtual environment online to help hatch a dinosaur egg. We’re excited to expand our exploration of this space by launching our first augmented reality mobile app and continue PBS KIDS’s leadership in using new technologies to further learning.”

“The FETCH! Lunch Rush App is designed as a 3-D game, which helps kids visualize the math problems they are trying to solve,” added Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, Children’s Media, PBS. “At PBS KIDS our goal is to use media to nurture kids’ natural curiosity and inspire them to explore the world around them; we can’t wait to see what this new app will mean for furthering that exploration.”

The Fetch! Lunch Rush App was produced by PBS member station WGBH and is based on the PBS KIDS GO!series FETCH! With Ruff Ruffman, also produced by WGBH. In this multiplayer app, Ruff Ruffman has to collect the lunch order for his studio crew. The challenge is keeping track of how many pieces of sushi everyone wants using augmented reality “markers” (printable hand-outs) that prompt activity within the app. The app uses 3-D imagery to reinforce the early algebraic concepts, helping kids to make the connection between real objects and corresponding numeric symbols.

The FETCH! Lunch Rush App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone or iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

Developed in partnership with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and powered by a Ready To Learn grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Fetch! Lunch Rush is part of a new suite of games available on the newly launched PBS KIDS Lab website (PBSKIDS.org/lab). Combined with online and interactive whiteboard games, this new app helps build a learning experience for kids that takes place across platforms, all with the goal of accelerating learning. In addition to FETCH!, six suites based on hit PBS KIDS series are available on the PBS KIDS Lab: THE CAT IN THE HAT KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THAT!, CURIOUS GEORGE,SID THE SCIENCE KID, FIZZY’S LUNCH LAB, SUPER WHY!. and DINOSAUR TRAIN.

To date, PBS KIDS mobile apps have been downloaded more than 1.4 million times. With a transmedia approach, PBS KIDS is increasingly serving children wherever they live, learn, and play – through mobile devices, as well as on TV, online, in the classroom, and through a new line of educational toys.

New Interactive Dinosaurus ExploreUs Book

Here's an informal announcement from Darren Lutz of Believe Animation about the latest with Dinosaurus ExploreUs. I worked on the original television bible and, if I remember right, pilot episode script. With money tight for television pilots Believe has moved to introduce Dinos in new interactive spaces, which is pretty great. I haven't seen it but it sounds like a nice integration of print and interactive media.

Exciting news from the work front. We just finished a book for one of my animated children's shows called DinosaurUs ExploreUs and it is being released this friday. yeh! It's called Rocks In My Socks and it was authored by my sister and I. It's an adorable story about the process of acceptance. What makes it really stand out from the pack though, is that it has Augmented Reality (old name; virtual reality) games and activities in it. You need an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch 4th gen. to use the AR. Its like nothing you have ever seen before. It will make an AWESOME christmas present for the lil' ones :-) It will be available on Amazon and the Dino website this Friday. The FREE App is in review by Apple now and should be ready be weeks end also.

The Children's App Manifesto

So I just got passed along this new manifesto for quality and responsibility in the creation of children's apps. I know quite a few people whose names appear in the signatures, and there's nothing in the manifesto that they weren't already doing; be sure to read the "Our Thinking" page. Where it might be most helpful for producers is to get in touch with other like-minded professionals. On that note, the Facebook Children and Media Professionals group is great for that to. Happy producing!

Sesame Street Launches in Afghanistan

There are already local versions across the globe, but the newest, that premiered yesterday, is significant for obvious reasons (just think of the fact Abby and Zoey are learning along with Elmo and Telly, for one example). Here's the AFP article (no byline):

US children's television favourite Sesame Street came toAfghanistan this week with the launch of a new series featuring familiar characters like Elmo and Big Bird.

"Baghch-e-Simsim" made its debut on a local TV channel Thursday and aims to improve education for children in the desperately poor, warring country.

It features Sesame Street's typical mix of Jim Henson's Muppets and short educational films and its initial run is for 26 half-hour episodes.

But some of the most familiar characters from the original show had to be cut from the Afghan version for cultural reasons, including the trash-loving Oscar the Grouch and The Count, a vampire maths whizz.

"Oscar the Grouch I had to minimise because his passion for trash did not translate well culturally here," the show's Afghan-American producer, Tania Farzana, told AFP.

As for The Count, she added that his fangs and fondness for bats would have proved problematic in a conservative, Islamic society like Afghanistan.

Producers also had to scrap a scene they tested in which shock-headed duo Bert and Ernie barked at each other.

"I can have them do lion sounds, rooster sounds but doing a dog is not acceptable," Farzana said.

"One of the worst words you can call someone in Afghan culture is a dog so to have kids barking like one is going beyond the line of what's right."

Farzana added that, unlike the US version of Sesame Street, dancing was not encouraged on the Afghan version.

Such activity in front of the opposite sex is seen as overtly sexual in Afghanistan, so Afghan children watching the show are encouraged to exercise to music instead of dancing.

"That way I don't get reprimanded by the parents because it's exercise and who can disagree with that?" Farzana said.

It is not the first time that the Sesame Street format has been exported.

A version of the show came to neighbouring Pakistan earlier this year, funded by the US government's international aid agency USAID, while co-productions have also screened in Bangladesh, Egypt, Mexico and Russia.

The latest version is a joint production by Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organisation behind Sesame Street, and Afghan television station Tolo.

"Teachers here in Afghanistan will discover that Sesame Street can help children start school well prepared," said the US ambassador to Kabul, Ryan Crocker. "Perhaps most importantly, it shows children the world around them."

Afghanistan's deputy education minister Mohammad Siddiq Patman said he believed the programme would "depict traditions, culture and other aspects of Afghan rural and urban life" and would be "profoundly useful" for children.

And here's a really short video from the Guardian:

New Beauty and the Beast app

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We were able to go down to Virginia Beach to see my brother's family, play with cousins, work on riding a bike without dozens of cars all around, and visit Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg on Black Friday. It wasn't Plymouth, but it was great to see the site of America's oldest English settlement and the recently excavated site of their first church, where Pocahontas was married. (At least I think the covered hole in the ground was the site referenced in the article, which came out a day or two after we visited.) Loretta's just suddenly gotten into the American Girl books, so it was nice to have two in hours in Williamsburg so that she can identify with the place when she reads the Felicity books, which she started this morning on the subway. It was a really unexpected "text-to-self" connection, as they say at her school.

Recently I've really been trying to get up to speed on all the kids' literary/narrative apps out there, like the Mo Willems app I wrote about the other week. A new one came out on 11/11 that looks really promising, Disney's Beauty and the Beat Storybook Deluxe:

Here's the description as posted in the app store:

Experience a tale as old as time in this fully interactive Storybook Deluxe app. Complete with games, movie clips, puzzles, coloring pages, and sing-along songs from the film, you’ll find a surprise on every page. Hear the story read aloud, record your own narration, or explore at your own pace.

In this unforgettable story of love and adventure, a young woman named Belle finds herself in a castle with talking furniture, an enchanted rose, and a grumpy beast. Despite an awkward beginning, Belle and the Beast gradually become friends, and Belle learns not to judge a book by its cover. A beloved Disney favorite retold in a magical new format the whole family can enjoy!

Features:
* Interactive Storybook Deluxe app features your favorite characters from Disney's award-winning Beauty and the Beast.
* Two reading modes allow you to follow along as the story is read aloud, or explore at your own pace.
* Engage in exciting activities based on scenes from Beauty and the Beast—help Belle make her way to the Beast's castle in the hedge maze, or go on a hunt for hidden roses.
* Puzzles and coloring pages for all ages!
* Record your voice reading the story and hear it played back as narration.
* Jump to your favorite page with the Visual Page Index.

I haven't been able to try it out yet--I guess I need to put an iPhone or Pad on my Christmas list--but it shows the promise of the expanding field of e-publishing. The combination of gaming and print is interesting, expanding the story world of the experience in ways that can engage new readers or lengthen the experience for established fans, and the games and coloring pages look really fun. But I'm a little more interested in the ways the app lets kids interact with the text itself. Essentially, different reading levels and reading out loud yourself remind me exactly of reading a print book, but it is a little different. Hearing your voice back, for instance, is something a book can't do, and I'd love to hear more about users' experiences--or professional research--about how this influences kids and the act of "reading" a text.

If you watch this demo video, however, you'll be reminded that the Disney Beauty and the Beast that's being adapted here to app form is not a book but a film. At first I was hesitant about the use of the full-motion video, but it looks like it actually works with the printed text quite well; the music, visuals, and Linda Woolverton's narrative innovations are obviously the strength of the film version, after all, so it wouldn't make sense to ignore those in bringing the film to the iPad (plus the performances by all the actors). What you're left with is a nice mix of video, print, and gaming, which should be a great treat for any Disney Princess fan. I hope that with future adaptations the mix becomes more and more fluid, but how to do that will be the state of the art of narrative app design.