Children’s Books

It’s true, TV is not good for you. According to a new study, children who watch SpongeBob Squarepants for brief periods of time perform worse in school than children who do not.

The LA Times has the story: “Immediately after their viewing and drawing tasks were complete, the kids were asked to perform four tests to assess executive function.  Unfortunately for the denizens of Bikini Bottom, the kids who watched nine minutes of the frenetic high jinks of the ‘animated sponge’ scored significantly worse than the other kids.”

Children’s books and kids book apps, on the other hand, will probably make your kids smarter.

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Open Road Integrated Media has teamed up with Canadian children’s publisher Kids Can Press to publish digital versions of the Franklin in the Dark series of digitally.

Under the terms of the partnership, Open Road will digitally publish 25 Franklin the Turtle titles including the 25^th anniversary edition of Franklin in the Dark. The eBooks will go on sale on May 17^th.

Open Road’s CEO Jane Friedman, (former CEO of Harper Collins), spoke to NPR today about the digital publishing company’s take on the future of publishing. She told NPR: “‘I am very happy not to be sitting as the CEO of Harper Collins, because as the CEO of a legacy publishing company, you are the CEO of basically two companies: one is physical and one is digital.’”

 

Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation are making free digital books accessible to kids online, and then giving away print books to other kids when someone reads the digital ones. They’re calling the new initiative We Give Books. It was <a href="unveiled this morning with the goal of getting more books into the hands of impoverished children.

In the an official announcement, Mark Nieker, the president of the Pearson Foundation, said: “The free website gives parents, caregivers, and educators immediate access to a growing digital library of children’s books from DK and from Penguin Group. For each book read online at www.wegivebooks.org, the Pearson Foundation–working together with a growing list of great non-profit organizations–will donate a brand new hardcover or paperback book to a child in need. ”

Here’s more from GalleyCat: “The U.S. launch today will kick off with a four-city tour by the Rock Bottom Remainders, a sort of supergroup band that includes Mitch Albom, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Amy Tan, Scott Turow, and Roy Blount, Jr. The first concert is this evening in Washington, D.C. They play in New York on Friday.”

As the publishing industry builds an eBook infrastructure, many readers hope to see their favorite books resurrected digitally. With the iPad and smartphone readers, out-of-print kid’s books could be revived in glorious color.

Over at GalleyCat Reviews, we featured a new curated list from Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations: 10 Out-of-Print Children’s Books Worth Overpaying For.

Over the last year, Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations has created more than 300 lists–giving reading advice on everything from book club books to cancer survivor books.

The complete list (created by Burgin Streetman) is posted at GalleyCat. Here’s more from the 10 Out-of-Print Children’s Books Worth Overpaying For list: “There are some books I would chop off my right arm for (and have… stops to wave with stump). These guys are the endangered species of the children’s book world, dwindling down, sale by sale… until… Get them now before they are gone forever, my friends.”

Today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss. To celebrate, Oceanhouse Media, the app developer with the exclusive deal to develop iPhone and iPod Touch apps based on Seuss books, is dropping the price of its Seuss apps for one day only, and that day is today.

Normally the eBook apps cost $3.99, but today Oceanhouse has lobbed $3.00 off the price tag, so you can snag a cheap and educational distraction for your little one for only $.99. No more letting your three-year old play Grand Theft Auto in the supermarket.

Oceanhouse currently has eBook apps in the app store for three Seuss titles: The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss’s ABCs, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. All of these apps feature read-aloud tracks and various touch features.

The other day we told you about Fisher-Price’s iXL, an iPad for kids–it’s an app-based computer for kids, including a children’s eBook app. Lots of readers responded to the news in the eBN comments and on Twitter, and we wanted to share some of their responses.

First, one reader, Michael Hochman, wasn’t slow on the uptake like this blogger (who said he didn’t like or understand the name “iXL” and pointed out the intelligence behind the product’s name: “What’s wrong with iXL? It’s clever (‘I excel’)” Oooooh. Of course.

Then, another reader posting as “Love The Cool: A Digital Life” either expressed that she would be buying an iXL for someone in her family because she’s had good experiences with this type of product, or won’t, because she already has something better: “My iPhone is the sitter for my 6 yr old nephew-educational apps and he figured out the multi-touch immediately.”

On Twitter, @JodyRobbins pointed out that Mattel, the company behind Fisher-Price and the iXL, is creating early adopters of future tech: “Leave no prospective lifelong customers alone.” @Nancybartels recalls a simpler time: “‘Member when Fisher-Price meant those funny round peg people & the play airport?” Finally, @cbaccus is skipping right over this kiddie toy for her little ones: “My 4 yr olds need the Apple apps and wifi so we’re going real iPad.”

There’s something surreal about the image above–it’s Mattel CEO Bob Eckert unveiling the Fisher-Price iXL, an app-powered tablet for preschoolers. Do preschoolers need an app-powered tablet? Apparently they do now. Here are some details from Mattel:

“iXL Learning System is a child’s portable window to a whole new world of learning and entertainment with six great applications: Story Book, Game Player, Note Book, Art Studio, Music Player and Photo Album. iXL, which is PC and MAC compatible, features an SD card slot for expanded memory and comes with a USB cord to connect to the computer. A software management CD enables users to add their own photos and songs (MP3s and WMAs). iXL can also store multiple software titles, songs and pictures with no cartridges needed. iXL will be available in July 2010 for approximately $79.99; licensed software CDs will also be available, sold separately for $24.99.”

Will the Story Book app feature all kinds of kids eBooks? We’ll investigate. And where do they get these names? iXL? Shouldn’t it be called something friendlier, like CompuBug or something?

What’s next? An iPad for dogs (featuring the controversial introduction of iBones)? A touchscreen bubble-counter for fish? When will the future get over itself and leave us alone?

iPhone app developer Oceanhouse Media has announced the release of three Seuss Enterprises-licensed apps based on the Dr. Seuss classic ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas.’ Two are games–’Grinchmas,’ a kind of digital snowball fight; and ‘The Dr. Seuss Camera-Grinch Edition,’ a greeting-card maker–and are already available in the app store. The third, which the company says will be out in time for the holidays, is an e-book version of the book itself.

The app features some nice enhancements: professional voice-over narration, words that highlight as they’re read and zoom up when touched, background audio, and enlarged artwork. The audio can also be turned off for “traditional” reading. Here’s Oceanhouse Media’s overview of the app. Karen Kripalani of Oceanhouse told eBookNewser that the app has been submitted to the Apple App store queue and hopes to see it released this or next week.

This app joins a growing list of highly-enhanced children’s eBooks–made by companies like ScrollMotion and (as detailed in an earlier post today) Sesame Workshop–that add audio and other digital-only features to make books do much more than display words and pictures. Yet other developers are wary of eBooks turning into games, and so are limiting their eBooks’ features to page-turning. What do you think–are books that read themselves aloud to us still books?

Sesame Workshop is taking its first steps into the world of e-books, mining its huge backlist of roughly 5,000 titles based on characters from its now 40-year-old children’s show, Sesame Street, and making some available as e-books from its Web site. Five titles are currently up on the Sesame Street site as a kind of preview of what’s to come. They are available for free in-browser reading, but not download.

Of the five titles currently available–including Elmo’s ABC Book and Happy, Healthy Monsters–the most interesting is The Monster at the End of This Book, which features narration in the voice of its main character, Grover, as well as other enhancements, which some of the planned titles will also features.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sesame Workshop plans to launch 100 e-book titles for purchase through its site in the Spring on a paid subscription basis, with pricing still to be determined. These books will be downloadable and will work on PCs and Macs. Impelsys, the New York-based company behind iPublishCentral, is providing the tech behind the e-books.