Fresh Apps - iPhone Apps & iPod Touch Apps.

Being laid up with the flu this past week, my son and I have had a lot of opportunity to sample The Boy Giant by Allan Plenderleith. It is a charming tale of a huge boy that is lonely due to his massive size, but in the end manages to find friendship where he least expects it.

Features

One of the iPhone’s best features is its simplicity, and due to that simplicity its operation has been mastered by my four-year-old. He can unlock the phone to look at pictures, videos, play some games, and of course now has this story to access on his own whenever he wants. When I get home from work every day I lose my phone for at least the first ten to fifteen minutes while he checks the farm and reads The Boy Giant.

The app plays a little bit like a moving storybook, and if you choose to have the author read the story aloud it is almost like a little movie. The story will also bookmark itself if interrupted by a phone call or other non-toddler use of the phone. There is a settings page where you can turn on and off sound effects and adjust relative volume levels, and you can even select international versus US English.

Pretend this is animated.

My son immediately took to the story, and it wasn’t just the movie-like quality of watching the story unfold. Even when I read it aloud to him and turned off the sound effects,  he laughs at the same jokes every time.

Pros

The story itself is well-written and the author has a great reading voice. He’s calm and soothing yet lively and engaging, and tells the story well. The drawings are cute and colorful, and the story is a nice one with a good message and identifiable characters.

Cons

The only real drawback to this app is that I keep losing my phone so that he can watch or read the story.

If you’re looking for an alternative to games and movies on your iPhone to tide you over on a sick day or while having a long wait for an appointment, this is an excellent choice. Compare the price of this to the price of a children’s book and you’ll see that this is a great value and a great story.