The iPhone Mom

The iStoryTime Kids Book apps are a series of original children’s stories, written for the iPhone. The books that are currently available are – The Brave Monkey Pirate, Fred the Fish, Shoe-per Duper Shoes, Binky the Pink Elephant and (the title that intrigues me the most) The Wiener Dog Magnet.

I have Fred the Fish on my iPhone and it’s a funny story with cute illustrations. I was impressed that it wasn’t a short story. That’s not to say that it’s excessively long but it’s more than a few short pages and will keep your kids occupied for a bit. Which (be honest) is what you want when you hand your iPhone over to your child, right??

If you tap the “i” button on the main page you’ll get a screen that lets you browse more books, email a friend about the app, adjust your narration voice and auto page turn. With each story you can choose to have the pages turn automatically or be turned by your child. There are also different narration styles to choose from. Some stories offer character voices, a child narration or standard narration. There’s also the option to turn the narration off so your child can read the story by themselves.

I was curious as to why you’re unable to pause the story so I emailed Graham of FrogDog Media, the folks behind the iStoryTime books. He told me that they’d originally built a pause feature into the app but removed it to keep the app as simple as possible. Makes sense. Right now you can swipe your finger across the screen to go back a page and the audio will restart for that page. He also mentioned that they might eventually add a setting where you could turn a pause option on or off. I’d totally endorse that addition!

I like the concept of the iStoryTime Kids Books and I enjoyed the Fred the Fish story that we tried out at my house. These apps are a nice alternative to handing your kids an app that’s a game.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99 (price is the same for all stories)

Available at iTunes

Fred the Fish

The Brave Monkey Pirate

Binky the Pink Elephant

Shoe-per Duper Shoes

The Wiener Dog Magnet

Seller: FrogDog Media, LLC