We've previously taken a look at Julia Dweck and Patricia Saco's sublime dip into the art world with "Henny Hops into Art - The Hare with the Pearl Earring". Julia kindly offered to let us take another look at her storytelling app range with 'Dina's Tea Time', again illustrated by Patricia and again adding more to the storytelling app genre than just a story.

Charlotte loves dinosaurs so she was very excited to see a book with such cute dino characters that gave lots of factual details about dinosaurs but - and this is a rather neat twist - also offered up some utterly brilliant dino-based recipes AND also a subject quite dear to my own heart, lots of information about tea! How cool!

Dina the Dinosaur is hosting the perfect tea party, but something's not quite right. As her dinosaur friends turn up one by one, something still nags at Dina. What could be missing? It takes a certain T(ea) Rex to point out the missing ingredient vital to a dino tea party!

Once you've delved into the story, you can view facts about the dinosaurs featured in the story and also try out some brilliant recipes. Are you tempted to try Mastodon Bone Scones? Or even Pteranodon choc chip cookies? Then step into Julia's dino world and bake up a batch. It doesn't even end there as you can also see some great educational videos and we defy you to get a certain tune out of your head once you see a cute little puppet singing it.

With an entertaining teatime story of Dina and her friends you're just beginning to dip into what's on offer here, and for the price this app really does represent great value with plenty of content to keep little ones busy.

We've consistently trumpeted about how important it will become for storybook apps to go beyond just offering the same experience a book can, if they're to truly shine as a storytelling form in their own right. Dina's Tea Time shows what modern tablets are capable of in order to enhance a story, provide background information, underpin a story with great factual content and give children a reason to revisit them again and again.

One very minor point to note - sometimes the navigation for the app seemed to be a little hit and miss. Children have a fairly low tolerance for anything slightly fiddly so if buttons don't instantly work, or feature a large enough 'hit zone' they can prove a little frustrating.

What's that you say? It's four o'clock? Well as we're English, I'm sure you know exactly why we're drawing this review to a close. Everything stops for tea!

Charlotte's best bit: Without a shadow of a doubt, the puppet song (she won't stop singing it, help!)

Daddy's favourite bit: As with "Henny", a brilliant story underpinned by fascinating facts and some utterly scrummy sounding recipes and plenty of Dina extras at the end. A dino-tastic package indeed!

(Kindly supplied for review by Julia / KiteReaders)

"Dina's Tea Time" (on iTunes)

Also available on Amazon for Kindle devices

Back in July we chanced upon a rather fantastic e-book that introduced children to the world of fine art, and some of the world's most famous artists and their works. We raved about it back then but now we've got the means to look at the book ourselves, we're overjoyed to learn there's an enhanced edition available through the iBook store from KiteReaders.

"Henny Hops into Art - The Hare with the Pearl Earring" caught our eye for many reasons. As Charlotte starts to discover classic artists through the brilliant world of children's picture books, it's quite tough to find books that neatly show off and explain the art world and the fantastic works on offer in a child-friendly way.

Through wonderful rhyming text (which, in the app, can be read aloud by you, or read to you) and utterly exquisite illustrations, we learn about a young Hare called Henny who loves her local gallery and loves to model for the artists there.

Cleverly, Julia and Patricia have created fantastically engaging characters who 'stand in' for the classic artists. So we soon meet Pi-Cat-Sso, and Van Crow and of course Verm Hare who are wonderful animal versions of Picasso, Van Gogh and Vermeer.

The interactive options in the app let a child explore colour mixing, put together jigsaw puzzles and explore the rich and vibrant real-world art that inspired the book - and of course the wonderful artists behind them.

As we said back in July, it's a crying shame that the book isn't available in print form (please please please someone make this happen!) but as an iBook it's utterly brilliant value and there's no better way to introduce your child to the art world.

Download Henny Hops Into Art here on the iTunes Store

Charlotte's best bit: She loved Pi-Cat-Sso (I suspected she would, she's completely mad about Picasso at the moment after reading Nicholas Allan's excellent "Picasso's Trousers"). But most of all she really loved Henny Hare and her beautiful dresses, a brilliant guide through the book and so very cute

Daddy's favourite bit: Vibrant illustrations and such a brilliant idea for a book. It stimulates and triggers so many discussions about art and artists, and engages children to go off and find out more, maybe even visit a gallery themselves. Utterly superb!

(Kindly supplied to us for review by KiteReaders / Julia Dweck)

Though we predominantly deal with print books here at ReadItDaddy, we're extending our coverage to e-books in all shapes and sizes. Though "The Hare with the Pearl Earring" is available directly through Amazon Kindle and published by KiteReaders (you'll need to obtain it by WhisperNet if you want to get hold of it, and believe me, you will!), it's such an interesting book that it really deserves shouting about.
Julia Dweck's core idea is to introduce children to the intoxicating intricacies of the art world through picture books and anthropomorphised animal characters. Picking famous artists like Van Gogh (or Van Crow as he appears in this book) and Vermeer, and showing off alternative versions of their most famous works will undoubtedly make inquisitive little souls (such as Charlotte) want to seek out the original artists and their works of art.

It's such a genius idea. I really hope that this gets picked up by a publisher and turned into a 'print' picture book (call me an old luddite but there's still nothing like the 'real deal' when it comes to children's picture books). Either that or I hope it makes it over here for the Kindle Fire's launch, because this will be going straight to the top of the download list when it does.

The Hare With The Pearl Earring (on US Amazon Kindle Store)