iTunes App Review: “The Berenstain Bears Love Their Neighbors”

The Berenstain Bears Love Their Neighbors – Oceanhouse Media

Released:  February 22, 2011

ABOUT THE APP:

In “The Berenstain Bears Love Their Neighbors” the Bear family learns an important lesson about finding and giving help in unexpected places.

Most of the Berenstain Bears’ neighbors are like the Bear family. They keep their homes neat and clean. Except for the Bogg Brothers who live in a run-down shack. Then The Bears’ children learn that being a good neighbor takes more than keeping a nice home.

New features only available in this interactive omBook for your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch include professional narration, background audio and enlarged artwork for each scene.

To promote reading in young children, individual words are highlighted as the story is read and words zoom up when pictures are touched.  By combining the original text and artwork with features that entertain and promote reading, this omBook appeals to readers of all ages.

Three ways to read this omBook:

• ★ “Read to Me” — listen to the narrated story with words highlighted as they are read
• ★ “Read it Myself” — read the book in its traditional form
• ★ “Auto Play” — plays like a movie, automatically reading and turning pages. Great for younger children!

Additional Features:

• ★ Picture / Word association — words zoom up and are spoken when pictures are touched
• ★ Professional audio narration
• ★ Custom background audio for each scene
• ★ Pages pan & zoom to accentuate the beautiful, original art of the Berenstains
• ★ This ‘Universal App’ is optimized for Retina displays and the iPad

MY THOUGHTS:

I loved The Berenstain Bears as a kid and love that I can now share it with my boys.  I used to read those books over and over!  Now with technology, even though I think regular books are great and important, it is nice to always have some great kid books with us on our Apple devices.

There are three choices when you first open this app:  Read to Me, Read it Myself, and Auto Play.  My boys like the Read to Me feature which reads a page and then allows kids to explore the page before going on to the next page.  Each page allows kids to touch items on the page and it says what they are, for example “Lawn” Brother Bear” “Birdhouse” and so on.  My boys tap all over that screen to hear all the different words!  I think it is great because instead of an action (some apps allow you to tap something and it moves or makes a sound) it repeats words which my boys can learn.  Going to the next page is very easy and there are no other buttons to get in the way.  Overall, this is a very simple, but fun and educational app.  It features a great Berenstain Bears story and the animation reminds me of the books!

BUY IT: You can download The Berenstain Bears Love Their Neighbors – Oceanhouse Media for your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad for $2.99.

Mom and More Disclosure: I received this App to review in exchange for my honest opinion. Please see my Disclosure Policy.