Of course, there is nothing nothing nothing like Disney when it comes to all-out, complete family entertainment satisfaction, so I was mighty excited to take a peek at the newest range of new release classic books, converted to ebook.
But how to choose? There is Cars, The Lion King, 101 Dalmatians, Peter Pan, Phineas and Ferb, Disney Fairies, Little Einsteins, Toy Story, Winnie the Pooh - and on it goes, combining vintage classic with modern day Disney channel fare.
Of course, I immediately downloaded Jungle Book, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Who could resist? These books have been converted to ebook in classic fashion - with no bells or whistles, just straight out text and classic Disney imagery. This is the type of book you would buy from a purist point of view - ie: you want your child to have a traditional reading experience.
The ebooks are nicely done, with flippable pages, like a regular book. A slide bar at the bottom of the page allows easy navigation to the page of your choice. Screen brightness can be adjusted, as can the size and type of page font; kids will have fun playing with this. There's no audio but there is a word search facility and a bookmark.
Toy Story's A Wild Ride is a spinoff story from the incredibly popular film series and once again features a classic storybook feel. Like the classic books above, there is no sound at all, but the images are large and colourful, making it an all round pleasant reading experience. Other stories include Woody's Big Adventure and Rocket Launchers, and the series also contains read-along books for smaller kids.
But Up! would have to be my absolute favourite. Done in graphic novel/comic books style, this is sheer visual delight. The pages can be read in portrait or landscape, and once again, the pages can be navigated with a slide bar at the bottom of the page. Illustrations are truly brilliant, and speech bubbles make for fun reading. Once again, there is no sound, making the story and visuals the focus.
Of course, there's simply too many titles to mention here and the Disney library is being added to all the time, so head to www.itunes.com/disney for to check out all your Disney favourites. Hopefully more interactive apps are up and coming - KBR totally fell in love with It's A Small World - would be wonderful to see more book/apps in this vein.
