Independent publisher Nosy Crow is pleased to announce that its Cinderella App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is now available on the App Store. Cinderella, an interactive picture book app for children, is the second in Nosy Crow’s series of 3-D fairy tale apps, recommended for children ages 3 and up.

The Cinderella App is a fresh take on the favorite fairytale. It features beautiful and witty illustrations by Ed Bryan; sophisticated animation; an original score by BAFTA award-winner Robin Beanland; and lively narration by child actors.

But it’s the rich interactivity that brings this book app to life. In Cinderella, readers make the magic happen. By tapping, swiping, dragging and dropping, they can help Cinderella clean the kitchen and find things the fairy godmother can transform into the magical carriage. They can even choose Cinderella’s dress for the ball. These activities give children an active role in advancing the story.

There’s also a special treat for readers using an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch that has a front-facing camera. Their faces will appear inside the “magic mirror” in some scenes of the story!

“With Cinderella, we’ve taken advantage of the features of the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch to deepen children’s engagement with the plot and characters,” says Kate Wilson, Managing Director of Nosy Crow. “Our touch-triggered activities are a seamless part of the narrative. This makes the reading experience exciting and different every time.”

Availability and Pricing
Starting September 13th, the Cinderella App is available from the App Store for an introductory price of $5.99 on iPad (regularly $7.99) and $3.99 on iPhone and iPod touch (regularly $4.99). Visit http://www.itunes.com/appstore/.

Links To Download
Cinderella for iPad
Cinderella for iPhone
Visit the Media Kit on Nosy Crow’s website for videos, screenshots and additional resources.

Device Requirements:
Compatible with all iPads. For iPhone and iPod touch, requires minimum iPhone 3GS or 3rd generation iPod touch running iOS 3.1.3 or higher.

About Nosy Crow
Nosy Crow is a London-based children’s book and app publisher founded in 2010 by veterans of the children’s publishing industry. In 2011, Nosy Crow will publish 26 books for children and young adults, as well as 4 interactive book apps for children. In the U.S. and Canada, the Nosy Crow imprint is published under the umbrella of Candlewick Press. In Australia and New Zealand, Nosy Crow partners with Allen and Unwin. (PRWeb)

Imagine Learning has released a significant upgrade to Bookster™, an interactive reading app for kids. The popular app was designed to entertain young readers while helping them develop reading skills. The app now features a bookshelf with eight new books and is available for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, as well as Android devices.

Bookster is a read-along storytelling app that not only reads to kids but also records and plays their voices—all while teaching vocabulary. With turnable pages, a read-along mode that highlights words as they’re read aloud, and an easy-to-use interface, Bookster is designed to make reading fun and easy for even the youngest of learners.

The upgraded version of Bookster features nine books filled with dynamic artwork from acclaimed artists, including New York Times bestselling illustrator Maryn Roos. New page previews and story summaries allow users to preview books before adding them to their bookshelves. The app can be downloaded for free through iTunes, the Android Market, or the Amazon Appstore for Android. More books will be added to the app in the coming months.

Imagine Learning, best known for its award-winning language and literacy software solution, Imagine Learning English, sees mobile applications as another way to deliver engaging, effective literacy instruction to children.

“Kids naturally love to explore picture books, but today’s mobile devices invite an even higher level of engagement,” said Clydie Wakefield, executive director of curriculum development. “With Bookster, kids can touch the words on the screen and hear them read again, turn pages, listen to a narrator and even become narrators themselves by recording their own voices. In the process, they learn print concepts, expand their vocabulary and develop a love of reading.”

The app was designed with both children and educators in mind, said Derek Dobson, director of product management at Imagine Learning. “Bookster is a wonderful app for both home and school use,” said Dobson. “More and more classrooms are implementing mobile devices like iPads and iPods as part of the curriculum, and we are working to meet schools’ technology needs by supplying them with quality content that is both educational and engaging.”

In a review on iPad Curriculum, a website that spotlights top educational iPad applications and practices, Edublog award-winner Kelly Tenkely identified Bookster as a valuable tool for helping students develop fluency.

Tenkely noted that giving students feedback on proper pronunciation and enunciation can be a challenge. Bookster helps teachers provide better feedback by enabling students to “play back their recording and compare what they recorded with the prerecorded narration, hearing the difference for themselves,” Tenkely wrote.

About Bookster
Designed by educators to help kids of all ages develop literacy skills, Bookster makes beginning to recognize and read new words fun and easy for even the youngest of readers.

Your kids will love Bookster’s

• Entertaining illustrations
• Engaging narration by kids their age
• Read-and-record mode that records as they (or you) read out loud
• Listen-to-recording mode that reads the book with their narration
• Read-along mode that highlights words as they are read aloud, teaching word recognition and vocabulary
• Easy-to-use interface
• Turnable pages that let them move at their own pace
• Interactive pages with tappable words

(PRWeb)

PROVO, Utah, /PRNewswire/ — ParentLink® today announced the release of its newest iPhone application for K-12 users of the ParentLink notification service. Called Mobile Parent, the new application is the first of its kind in the industry and was recently approved by Apple for download from the iPhone App Store.

Parents in districts and schools that use the ParentLink communication system can now access all school messages as well as their account information and school directories—all from their iPhone. This new app makes it even easier for parents to be immediately aware of what is going on at their child’s school and never miss an important attendance, classroom or emergency notification.

“We are very excited to release our newest iPhone application,” said John Graff, ParentLink’s President. “We spend a lot of time talking with our partners in schools around the country and know that our Mobile Parent app will be a tremendous tool for parents. One key reason we developed this application was to meet the needs of some of our very large school districts where many households may not have Internet access in the home but the parents and students access the Internet on their smartphones.”

Reflecting the continued rapid growth in usage, more and more parents are now relying on their smart phones for communication and Internet access. According to a recent Nielsen report, smartphone users now account for 37 percent of all mobile subscribers in the U.S., with the largest percentage of those using the Apple iOS. “Growth in Smartphone data usage is clearly being driven by app-friendly operating systems like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android,” Nielsen writes. The ParentLink Mobile Parent app provides those parents with a powerful way to stay engaged in their children’s educational activities. Studies have consistently shown that the greatest predictor of student achievement is increasing parental engagement. Those same studies also say that schools must interface with parents at many points and over long periods of time. ParentLink provides the tools to make this a reality, both for parents and for the schools.

The ParentLink notification service is used by thousands of schools and hundreds of districts, including 5 of the 10 largest districts in the country. The Mobile Parent app gives parents the ability to remain informed and engaged regardless of time or location. Once the app is installed, parents simply use their existing ParentLink account to log in and choose whether to review messages and alerts, update their contact details, or access the school directory.

The ParentLink Mobile Parent app is free and available immediately from the iPhone App Store. For more information about all of the solutions from ParentLink, please visit: http://www.parentlink.net.

Summer time means your kids will have plenty of leisure hours and these days, that actually means playing on gadgets like the iPad, iPhone or any Android device. If you allow your kids use of these in the house, there are a lot of child-appropriate applications you can download or buy online.

Some of these aren’t just brainless games, as they also encourage creativity and a good thinking process. Below are just some of the stuff you can get for your kids for their gadgets:

1. Faces I Make Application — I love that this application is so fun to play with and at the same time, it helps children come up with creative ideas. I myself can get lost for hours on this, so imagine what it can do for your kids. This application is about a less than two dollars at the Apple store and can work on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

2. Doodle Buddy — my nieces have this in their parents’ gadgets and I can tell you how much they’re having fun. This application has finger painting and offers really colorful and vivid images where children can also make stamps out of. The best part? This is a Free application for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

3. Kids Doodle — this is slightly similar to Doodle Buddy except that it works only for the Android. This is a painting application and your child will be amazed with all the colors and drawings he can do with it. You can get this for $1.49 at the Android Market.

Red Box Productions today announces that Baby Pack & Go is growing quickly to become one of the most popular applications in the Travel category of the US iTunes App Store since its launch on 25 June 2009. This customizable iPhone and iTouch application provides parents and caregivers a simple solution to make sure they pack and take with them everything their baby or toddler needs the next time they leave home so that they are always prepared and have peace of mind.

Baby Pack & Go helps parents and caregivers create custom checklists that are used to efficiently organize their children packing prior or during outings and trips. By using Baby Pack & Go parents will never again forget to pack a milk bottle, pacifier, or baby wipes into the diaper bag.

Baby Pack & Go is designed for ease of use so that parents and caregivers can quickly and easily use this tool when navigating their busy family lives. Parents can start managing trips instantly by using Baby Pack & Go ready-made packing lists, or can customize and personalize their own lists by adding photos, sounds or background colors. Parents will find an extensive catalog of baby and toddler related items to add to their lists. Additionally, if an item does not exist in the catalog, parents can customize the lists further by adding new item names. Baby Pack & Go helps parents manage all their baby travel needs.

Baby Pack & Go is priced at USD $1.99 and is available to download from any Apple iTunes Store worldwide.