Children’s book review & giveaway: Hush Little Baby and Sleep Baby Sleep
Recently my two-year-old and I had the pleasure of reviewing two new books based on lullabies, Hush, Little Baby and Sleep Baby Sleep. They beautifully tell the songs.
My daughter is an avid “read to me, or let me sit quietly and look at the pictures,” and lullaby lover, making both books a perfect fit that have recently become two in our bag that must travel with us wherever we go. The best part for me, I can sing them to her in the car while she flips the pages in the back seat!
In addition to the books, Tiger Tales also offers e-book apps (available at iTunes) for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch of both lullabies. The applications show the same great illustrations as the paper books, and offer both a read-a-long and sing-a-long function. ”Rock-a-By Baby” is also available.
Record yourself reading or singing along …
One of the coolest features is that you can record your own read or sing-a-long to play. (Great for military families when kids feel comforted by having Mommy or Daddy read them a bedtime story). In addition to the sing-a-long feature, there is also a read-a-long that highlights the words as the story is read. The apps also allow for an instrumental only mode, perfect for bedtime.
Tiger Tales apps were recently named one of babble.com’s top 50 iPhone apps for kids.
Being a paper book loving gal with a paper book loving child, I was very interested to see how e-books would be received by both my daughter and I. She thinks these are great and I have to agree. I had to listen to, “again Mommy play again,” over and over until the friend of mine (who was nice enough to loan us her iPhone) had to leave.
Win a book or an app
What do you think the future is of children’s e-books? Does having and e-book make the stories more fun for the kids? More fun for you? Do you think e-book apps will change how our kids read in the future? What’s your favorite way to read books to your kids?
Give us your thoughts for a chance to win your copy of Hush, Little Baby and Sleep Baby Sleep and Rock-a-By Baby in either the old-fashioned paper versions or the new iPhone/ iPad / iPod Touch apps!
Deadline to win is 11 p.m. EST Friday September 17.
To enter, add a comment below.
Happy reading!
Note: I received free copies of both the paper books and apps from Tiger Tales books for review.
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Filed Under: Featured • Managing Your Career • Working Moms Resources
About the Author: Renee is a Co-Founder of MomsToWork and a mom to two great kids. Follow @reneeyaborough
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I love to read and am slowly coming around to reading books digitally on my iPad. My biggest concern with ebooks for kids, though, is that their creativity will be stifled. If there is always an image to accompany the words, how will they develope their own individual ideas and visual interpretations of content? I’d rather cuddle up to a book than a screen anyday.
Peggy,
Interesting point. I had not thought beyond the picture books I read to my kids daily vs what they will be reading in a few years.
Renee
I think in the very near future that will be the standard for reading a book. I downloaded Dr Seuss books on my iphone and the kids love it. They are five and so can manipulate which option they want (to be read to, to read it themselves etc). It has been a great for reinforcing books they know, are familiar with and they now have a new interest in them. The problem for me is trying to share my iphone between 3 kids and oh try use it as the business tool it is for me while it still has some battery life in it.
I am with you Fez. I discourage the kids from using my phone or my laptop for these sorts of things because they quickly take over.
I can see how these new applications make reading on the go or while traveling more manageable, but I love the old-fashioned idea of pulling a book out of your bag, and reading. Going back and forwards, looking at familiar drawings, touching the pages of the more tactile books that we used to have when my twin boys were little. We loved the ones with furry rabbits, and hard scaly stuff on the back of crocodiles, etc.
I wish I could go back to when they were young to try it again … but am way too old to have more children. I will leave it to the next generation of moms to try out these new reading applications.
Battery life and take overs do make things harder. Thankfully, my kid is uncertain how to answer the phone at this time, but i can only imagine the day when she learns and my colleagues get their first toddler answer or tweet….yikes.
One of my other concerns is what happens if your child (heaven forbid) drops your phone or your iPad.
Hey, Renee,
This is Jon Prial. My wife is the Publisher of Tiger Tales and I’m partnering with her to take her books to the Apple platform as mytales digital. The challenge (and the fun part) was to look at the book and then decide what it would take to create an app that retains the book experience and also leverages the device.
We were excited about the recording feature of these lullabies because my wife has always been a working mother and I am a blogger on work-life issues (http://balancedbits.com) and the thought of a traveling parent leaving something behind for bedtime seems to be something special (grandparents, too). Thanks for the military idea!
Thank you also for this review of our products, Renee, and we hope this giveaway is good for Moms to Work, too. Your site is a great one.
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