children

Five fabulous holiday e-books for kids

The other day I had to drag my kids along for some furniture shopping. Rather than endure whining and interruptions for half an hour, I handed over my iPhone--with the condition that the only apps they could use were e-books.

We didn't hear a peep from them the whole time.

As I said in Five amazing e-books for kids and again in Five more amazing e-books for kids, iOS devices are awesome e-book readers--especially for children's titles. So in honor of the season, I've rounded up another five excellent e-books for kids (six, actually)--all of them honed for the holidays.

Oceanhouse Media just cranked out a host of new goodies, including the Thanksgiving-themed "The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks" and the classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"--the latter featuring artwork and sound effects from the beloved TV special.

They're both $2.99, and both universal, meaning they're compatible with iPhones and iPads alike. (While you're at it, check out OM's new Little Critter titles: "All By Myself," "Just Grandma and Me," and "I Just Forgot." They're not holiday-related, but they're just as fabulous--and only $1.99 apiece.)

Christmas Tale for iPad Let's hear it for a rare e-book freebie. It's your basic toddler-oriented tale of Santa, the North Pole, and presents, with nicely illustrated pages and the obligatory interactive goodies hidden therein. The app also includes a few games and even a wish-list builder. It's free until December 15.… Read more

'Sesame Street' skit slaps 'an app for that' concept

"Sesame Street" exists so that children gain some subconscious understanding that their parents are somewhere on the spectrum between fallible and incompetent.

Who can, therefore, be surprised that the show decided to offer a little musical balance to the current and very popular idea that there exists a mobile app to solve any problem?

This song reflects quite beautifully man's excessive reliance on technology to alleviate the deficiencies of his own narcotically addled brain.

You will, I trust, enjoy some of the notional apps introduced in the skit--such as the one that will help you meet a … Read more

Study: Preschoolers are overdosing on screen time

The recommended maximum TV viewing for preschool-age children is two hours a day, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

So researchers at the Seattle Children's Research Institute and the University of Washington decided to see just how many kids adhere to that limit. They analyzed data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Birth Cohort, which includes information on more than 10,000 children born in 2001 with diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.

The results, just published in the Journal of Pediatrics, are pretty damning.

First, screen time is defined as watching TV and movies. In this study, screen time … Read more

The iPhone app that detects monsters

Do you lie awake at night and see large, hairy beings, their eyes the size of the moon, leaping out of the wardrobe and looming over you?

Do you walk into dark spaces and feel the presence of ghostly apparitions ready to make deep-throated noises before they turn your epiglottis into carpaccio?

Do I sound like I am talking to a 6-year-old? This is because many children endure such fears. However, perhaps you too, still suffer from such traumas.

Might I offer you the potential of a remedy? Please begin by clutching your iPhone and availing yourself of a Monster Meter.… Read more

Too much screen time bad for kids' behavior

As kids in the '80s, my twin brother and I were allowed to watch about an hour of TV a week, which we typically used up on Saturday morning cartoons and which resulted in near total pop culture illiteracy. The dedicated hour brought on such intense euphoria that one time, when our father fell through the kitchen floor and broke a few ribs (it was an old house), we looked at him, saw he was still alive, and went back to watching Bugs Bunny.

For years this anecdote served as our central argument for more screen time (which soon included … Read more

The Berenstain Bears visit the App Store

Having turned more than a dozen Dr. Seuss classics into e-book gold, Oceanhouse Media is heading to Bear Country.

The Berenstain Bears and the Golden Rule, The Berenstain Bears Go To Sunday School, and The Berenstain Bears Say Their Prayers are now available in the App Store for an introductory price of $2.99 each.

If you have kids, you probably don't need me to introduce the series. These books are classics; I think I may have read a few back when I was a kid (the first title appeared in 1974). Although a handful of the books have … Read more

Tales2Go 2.0 adds caching, multitasking

One of my favorite apps of 2010 just got a major update. Tales2Go, which provides on-demand access to nearly 1,300 children's audiobooks, updated the app to add multitasking support, story caching for offline listening, new subscription options, and more.

Intended for children between the ages of 3 and 11, Tales2Go offers a huge range of listening material--everything from two-minute fables to full-length novels. These aren't just public-domain works, either: you'll find well-known series like "American Girl," "The Boxcar Children," "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," and "Encyclopedia Brown."

For … Read more

Save 50 percent on Dr. Seuss e-book apps, games

Here's an anniversary worth celebrating: it was 50 years ago last month that Dr. Seuss published "Green Eggs and Ham." It's since gone on to become the fourth best-selling children's book of all time.

Oceanhouse Media, which for the past year has been turning "Green Eggs and Ham" and other Seuss classics into spectacular apps, decided to honor the event with a 50-percent-off sale. For the rest of the week, you can buy Yertle the Turtle (possibly the best book ever written on the subject of turtle-stacking) for $1.99, the kids game … Read more

iPad e-books for children: Five more amazing titles

A few months back I told you about five amazing iPad e-books for kids, noting that Apple's tablet is arguably the single best platform for reading (and, thanks to various interactive features, experiencing) children's books.

App developers and book publishers seem to agree, as the App Store is now home to dozens, if not hundreds, of kid-friendly e-books.

Here's a look at five more (seven if you count the Seuss stuff) that are sure to please wee readers and parents alike.

1. Aesop's Wheel of Fables No children's book collection is complete without Aesop's Fables. This app serves up 20 tales, all of them showcased in a spinning wheel that adds a bit of tactile fun to the story-selection process. It also has spot-the-difference games that get unlocked as you read, and an option for parents to record their own voices for kids to listen to in place of the prerecorded voice. The app's on sale for $6.99 until August 5, when it goes up to $8.99.

2. More Dr. Seuss Oceanhouse Media continues to crank out terrific Seuss classics, all of them optimized and enhanced for the iPad. The latest releases include "Green Eggs and Ham" ($3.99), "Gertrude McFuzz" ($1.99), and--yay!--"Yertle the Turtle" ($3.99). If only my kids weren't on the verge of outgrowing these! Hmm, maybe I should have one more...

3. "The Little Mermaid" Not the Disney version, but the classic Hans Christian Anderson tale, here brought to life with animated, interactive elements reminiscent of the now-classic "Alice for iPad." Beautifully illustrated and thoroughly engaging, the $8.99 app also includes "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Happy Family."… Read more

YouTube for the boob tube

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

YouTube launches a beta version of YouTube Leanback to bring the video service to your television and revamps its mobile site for easier touchscreen navigationMotorola announces the Motorola CHARM, a new Android phone for T-MobileSprint announces the Samsung Intercept, its latest Android offeringAmazon launches an online grocery store in the UKTime Magazine will stop publishing its magazine articles for free online until they are two weeks oldA new study shows that students do suffer from attention span problems after consistent exposure to television and video games