Bean’s Night
While the sun is up, Bean sleeps, but at night this frisky black kitty is ready for play—running, scrambling and diving in a lively chase after a pink toy mouse.
The story is told in simple two word rhyming phrases, which in the “read to me” version, 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 Night, Bean’s Baby, and Bean’s Games 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 enhanced, separated, 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.
*Simple one or two word phrases tell the story
*Interactions are simple and fun—just enough for little ones
*Playful musical enhancements and sound effects
*Autoplay lets child enjoy the story from beginning to end…
then touch a button to play it . . . “again”
*Read-to-me with highlighting helps make the connection
between printed and spoken words
*Read-it-myself for optimal sharing and reading practice
*No hot links, ads, in-app purchases, push notifications,
or data collecting! Safe for kids! Safe for parents!
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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Review by Kirkus: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sarah-hines-stephens/beans-night/
Review by Digital Storytime: http://digital-storytime.com/review.php?id=835#sthash.HS0VwNoh.dpuf
How did Kwik help?
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.
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 Night 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!”?
