Dr. Seuss Apps by Oceanhouse Media – Review

After the piece I wrote about The Cat In the Hat by Dr. Seuss for the iPhone, the maker of the product, Oceanhouse Media, reached out to me to review some of their apps.

Dr. Seuss’s ABC- This is the perfect app for a variety of ages because the apps allows you to select one of two modes for reading the e-book.  “Read to Me” allows you to listen to the narrated story and “Read it Myself” allows you to read the book without narration.  Once my kids got wind of this app on my iPod Touch I was without my device for a very long time.  My 6 year old liked to read it himself but was also very much about interacting with the pictures and custom audio.  My 4 year old liked having it read to him, and voice of the lady narrator fits perfectly with what I would expect for this book.  I can not get over how well the narration is done.  You can flip the pages by swiping the screen which also makes it easy for a younger child to use.  I think I will also find this useful with the new baby once she makes her appearance as it will be nice to have this in the car with a fussy baby.  My hope is that once the iPad comes out we can transfer our apps because this is one I would love to have on a larger screen as well.  Also note that this app is based on the complete book not the shorter ABC board book.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas!- This is an interested app because when my first son was born they were showing the animated show on television.  So every Christmas we always spend a fair amount of time trying to find our copy of the book so we can read it.  This will be nice because I always know where my iPod Touch is.  Plus I think the boys will enjoy reading it over and over around the holidays as well.  Once again the narration blew me away with the quality and the matching of voice to story and actually matching the narration of the animated show as well.  The interaction of the background audio along with the pan & zoom of the pages take this way beyond the realm of a normal e-book. 

Dr. Seuss Camera – The Grinch Edition- While I do not have an iPhone with a camera, I do have a bunch of pictures loaded on my iPod Touch.  This app allows you to make “Grinchmas Cards” by putting you in the card.  You can then email the cards to your friends and family.  You can also zoom your picture in and out to make sure it fits.  I made my older son be the face of the Grinch and he loved it.  The boys got a little carried away by putting each other as Cindy-Lou Who, but they had fun!  I am going to make sure to use this one as the holidays get closer and send email cards out to everyone.

You can check out the video below and order it from the iPhone App Store and be sure to check out the Oceanhouse Media website where they have “Apps that uplift, educate and inspire.”  I would fully agree with their motto!

Two ways to read this e-book:

• “Read to Me” — listen to the narrated story with words highlighted as they are read
• “Read it Myself” — read the book in its traditional form

Additional Features:

• Picture / Word association — words zoom up and are spoken when pictures are touched
• Professional audio narration
• Custom background audio for each scene
• Pages pan & zoom to accentuate the beautiful, original art of Dr. Seuss