Bean’s Games
Bean, that curious black cat, plays lots of games, including Jumping Bean, String Bean, Bean Bag, and Peek-a-Bean. Adults can enjoy the word play along with their toddlers, as the lively black kitty romps through the pages of this simple app.
The story is told in spare one or two word phrases, which in “read to me” mode, highlight as they are read by the young narrator, helping the child associate the sound of the word with the printed text. Even the youngest will soon be able to “read it myself.” Gentle animations enhance the story and most are repeatable on touch. Set it for auto-play and the toddler can enjoy the story from beginning to end, and then hit the button to read the story “again”… and “again.”
Bean’s Games, Bean’s Baby, and Bean’s Night started out as a trio of board books, well loved by little ones and their parents. Sarah Hines-Stephens wrote the books to welcome her first nephew—eighteen years ago— and has since gone on to publish many titles for children. Anna Grossnickle Hines, author and illustrator of numerous books already, was thrilled to join forces with her daughter and do the colored pencil illustrations for this trio of books to honor her first grandson. Now Anna has scanned the original drawings, digitally separated, enhanced and animated them for the apps. Grandpa, Gary Hines, recorded granddaughter Violet Grace Stephens as the narrator, and did all the sound work, making the creation of the apps truly a family affair.
All three adventures of this endearing cat are now available as apps to delight a new generation.
Anna Grossnickle Hines is an award winning author of more than 60 books for children, well known for her ability to take everyday events and turn them into engaging picture books.
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How did Kwik help?
I will answer here the same as Bean’s Night: As an author illustrator, programming is more of a challenge than I want to take on. Hiring someone to program apps based on my stories and illustrations is way out of my budget. With Kwik I can do the programming myself and get exactly what I want!
What are your favorite features?
So many things! Kwik allows lots of options with actions, timers, animations, audio that can be combined in various ways. So far I have been able to do pretty much whatever I can think of to help tell my stories with animation and audio.
I also love to be able to do work syncing so easily.
Any tips and tricks to share?
Having studied children’s literature, and written and published many books, I would like to see book-apps have the same level of strong stories that the most excellent paper books do. For many years I have participated in writer’s conferences and critique groups where the focus has been on writing really good stories for children. It is not so easy as it might seem considering the number of words used! That just means each word is that much more important. A good source of information to improve writing skills is the Society of Children’s Book Writers and illustrators, SCBWI.org.
Alex’s Review
Bean’s Games is another title of The Bean series, which brings great stories in different languages, memorable characters, good quality sound and beautiful illustrations. What else should I say besides “get yours now and complete your collection!”?
