We keep saying "We're not going to cover any more apps" which swiftly changes to "Oh go on then, just one more" when we see things like "The Rolling Pea" by Kiev Sea Pirates. Ukranian developers KSP have produced a story app that is so utterly gorgeous to look at, and is so beautifully presented that we couldn't resist its charms.

With a traditional folk-tale feel, "Rolling Pea" tells the story of a brave little boy who grows up with astonishing strength. When a wicked dragon kidnaps his brothers and sister, Rolling Pea sets out on an epic quest to free them and defeat the nefarious scaly beast.

Set out over 30 pages with an absolute TON of interactive elements (KSP tell us that there are over 500 to discover), and with a beautiful professionally produced soundtrack and narrative track, "Rolling Pea" is definitely not your average interactive story. Like most apps we dearly wish this was a print book (the illustrations are truly jaw-dropping) but we had a lot of fun with this, and can't wait to see more from this talented crew.

Find out more information on "Rolling Pea" on the Kiev Sea Pirates website.

Rolling Pea is available on the App Store (iPad Version)

Pinging all the tiny and delicately designed interactive elements in the story, and dodging gigantic mace weapons as they drop from the sky.

Daddy's Favourite bit: Eye-poppingly brilliant illustrations, slick design and some truly lovely music and sound effects. An app that positively screams quality from every pixel.

One of our biggest frustrations when it comes to storytelling apps is the way the platform for delivery is viewed. So many times we've looked at iBooks and storytelling apps that merely offer a few extra whistles and bells, but serve up a story much in the same way print books do. This always seems like a complete waste, given that most modern tablets are so full of features that really ought to be used to their full potential.

Nosy Crow have been chipping away at the "storytelling app" cliches for a while now. Their apps crop up every year in reputable "Best App" roundups, and you've only got to see their app store ratings to know that they're definitely doing something right. So what's their secret?

Up till now we've not experienced them directly, as apps are still a bit of a hard sell to us for various reasons (check out our guest articles on Helen Dineen's excellent "CAPPtivated Kids" blog to get an idea of why we feel the way we do about them).

Nevertheless, when Nosy Crow very kindly gave us the opportunity to review their latest storytelling app, "Jack and the Beanstalk" we wanted to see whether their bold claims of a "gamified reading experience" held water.

Time to explore, and there's plenty to discover in "Jack and the Beanstalk"

I'm very happy to report that they do indeed. "Jack and the Beanstalk" not only breaks most of the usual rules for storytelling apps, it invents a few of its own along the way. Gone is the single-line-of-story from start to finish, opting for branching narrative dependent on what the reader (or should that be 'player') does during the course of the story. Gone too are those irritating immersion-breaking navigation controls or controls for points of interest. Nosy Crow's excellent development team have obviously spent time not only thinking about their content and the method of delivery, but they've honed the user experience to a point where children from a broad age range will be able to adapt to how they want to use the app. If they choose, they can have a relatively standard story experience or opt for more interaction.

Tricky bit coming up!

Charlotte delighted in the voyage of discovery piquing her curiosity in each scene as Jack finds his way through the story. From time to time I'd join her to help her over some of the tricky bits (I'm not sure that allowing the app to be panned around or pinch-scaled was such a good idea, it can mean frustration for younger players but it does mean you can soak up all the lovely details in the illustrations).

Points of interest appear after a short while if children don't find them under their own steam

Adapting a well-known fairy tale is also a good move in this case, because when the surprises happen (and there are plenty of surprises tucked into the "Jack and the Beanstalk" app) children are genuinely delighted by them (and sometimes, thanks to some superb audio production, a little bit scared by certain scenes - perhaps one to play with younger children cuddling on your lap if they're slightly nervy of mild peril).

Jack and his mum. The story is told with brilliant audio and excellent child actors, helping children more readily identify with what's being said / conveyed.

In essence, bridging the gap between story and game means maintaining a really good quality and consistent experience right across the board (there's nothing worse than a story telling app that dishes up the same tired old minigame tropes to win over kids who would rather play than read). Game-playing kids are served well in "Jack and the Beanstalk" and again, the app expertly appeals to quite a broad age range - even the very young will find it easy to use, intuitive and plenty of fun.

Returning to the top of the review, Nosy Crow's developers use the iPad's features in some very cool ways (like piecing together a broken mirror - which actually uses the camera to show the child's reflection while they play).

Gold! Gimme more gold!

We won't spoil too many of the other surprises for you. Nosy Crow's ethos is sound, charging a reasonable price for an engaging app that kids will return to again and again - eschewing the detestable model of microtransactions or ad-driven apps in favour of quality and consistency for a one-shot price. If you're the sort of person that thinks £2.99 is expensive for apps, consider how much the average "free" storytelling app will cost you once you start paying for all that extra content.

On another matter, Apps vs Books, E vs Print is often seen as some sort of bizarre unwinnable war - with the lines of conflict tightly drawn on both sides. Consider then that Nosy Crow are Switzerland, deftly establishing a neutral zone where stories and apps can live in perfect harmony.

"Jack and the Beanstalk" from Nosy Crow is available on the app store, priced £2.99.

Check out the app trailer below:



Charlotte's best bit: Helping the giant's librarian sort out his book collection, and rebuilding a broken mirror. 

Daddy's Favourite bit: Absolutely top notch five-star presentation, a brilliant branching approach to the story that's a take on a classic, and a truly well balanced app exuding quality and immersion in the story from every pixel. For a hardened story-app naysayer, it's not faint praise to describe this as the way we'd love to see all storytelling apps shaped in future. 

(Kindly sent to us for review by Nosy Crow)

Toca Boca apps are usually an instant buy for us, so as soon as a new one hits the app store, we'll usually download it sight unseen. Toca Cars sounded, on paper, like the perfect little digital app toy to us. Cardboard cars racing around a fabulous cut-out landscape, reminding us of the car mats we had when we were kids - and reminding Charlotte of her favourite huge lego road system that she loves building vehicles and houses for.

There are essentially two modes here, and two vehicles to choose from. One mode lets you loose in a pre-built landscape, scooting around in your car (which follows your finger around the screen - drag and drive!) the other mode lets you place objects onto the road map yourself, so you can put up houses, traffic signs and even other non-playable characters to drive around or interact with.

That is pretty much it. There seems to be something rather odd going on with Toca apps lately - perhaps it's just us though. They seem to be a little on the shallow side of late, and though we had fun with the last app (Toca Builder) we felt that it had limited appeal once you'd got past its 'Minecraft Builder Lite' gameplay.

The same is true here. Placing objects on the road system (which you can't actually change or tweak), only racing two cars (not together either so no actual racing), putting scenery up then knocking it down. It felt like there was a ton of potential here that was frittered away on tweaking the game to feel right, without actually having a game in there at all. It was very unusual to see Charlotte getting frustrated and disappointed with the game so quickly, and it didn't take long before she quit and went straight back to the other Toca apps she's been playing with for ages (Toca Hair Salon 1 and 2 and Toca Tailor).

Bit of a crushing disappointment really - and something that'll have us thinking twice before we buy before reading reviews or watching trailers in future. Hmmm!


Charlotte's best bit: Putting things up, knocking them down with the car

Daddy's Favourite bit: Fairly simplistic and shallow. It still has all the trademark slickness you expect from Toca Boca, but there's something missing - it all feels a bit lightweight and shallow.

Need to build something tall? Use Connie the Crane!

The release of a new TOCA BOCA app is always cause for excitement at home. TOCA BOCA have been producing some of the best children's 'toy' apps for a long time now, and so we were extremely excited to hear that TOCA Builders would be next.

Having already dipped our dainty toes into the intricate world of Minecraft, with Charlotte telling me what to do (as usual) and me trying to work out in my head how to build "A love heart shaped house with a princess bed in it", I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to let Charlotte loose with something similar - but slightly simpler for her age range.

Actually, describing TOCA Builders as being like Minecraft is a bit unfair. It's more like a digital set of Hama beads - and in fact the principle of creating anything that "looks like anything" is the same.

Initially you're given a blank 'sandbox' to play in, and you're introduced to the builders themselves...

Meet the TOCA Builders Team. Not a sweaty bum crack in sight!

Connie (The crane), Blox (basher and builder), Cooper (he rolls paint around with his fab rollerball), Stretch (useful for reaching high places), Jum Jum (she's static but is a dab hand with her paint squirter) and Vex (who is deft and agile enough to climb up on blocks and lay down blocks too).

If you imagine TOCA Builders as being like a Heath-Robinson pixel art tool, you're pretty much bang on the nail. The thing is, despite appearing a bit fiddly and convoluted at first, you can leave your children to discover themselves what the on-screen controls do, what each builder is capable of - then sit back and watch their imaginations spark up and see what happens when they realise the best way to place, manipulate and paint blocks.

Charlotte, admittedly, spent a lot of time running around with Blox, just mindlessly building little fenced-off areas. Soon though she'd worked out how the game's rotate controls (to spin your characters on the spot) worked, and how those delicious rollerball controls worked (for Cooper and Jum-Jum - App developers take note, that is a BRILLIANT control system but TOCA did it first so no stealing, OK?)

Once Charlotte was tucked up in bed, I sneaked out the iPad for a bit more of a go myself and managed to knock up a crazy looking Easter Island head. More dextrous kids will find it a breeze but younger children may well struggle a bit until they get into their groove. It's certainly a TOCA app that demands a little bit more thought and a huge amount more time than their others.

That said, you'll find hours slipping away to it. It's as addictive as a bag of strawberry bon-bons, it's utterly beautifully produced and slick (as you'd expect from the team) and with the picture snapping tools (which I actually think could've been a LOT better - you're limited to taking snaps of the immediate area surrounding the character you last controlled rather than snapping an overview of a chosen chunk of your scene) your children can share their creations with the world.

Falling in love with Volcanoes!

Charlotte is hooked, even though she's still at the stage of experimenting with it all, but in her mind she is swiftly getting a handle on how to produce something cool from her world of coloured blocks. Maybe one day the old man will have to show her how to get cracking with some pixel art too!

Charlotte's best bit: Splattering a scene with paint using Jum Jum!

Daddy's favourite bit: Slick controls, brilliant presentation, a few disappointing bits (the camera capture really could've been better and sometimes the rotate controls for characters are a bit too quick) but as addictive and vital to your iPad collection as everything else TOCA BOCA do!

TOCA Builders is available from iTunes for 69p for a limited time so get in quick!

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/toca-builders/id652077009?mt=8

Bertie's ABC - Squeaky-keen phonics for your youngsters!

Try as we might, we can't keep away from a good app so it was great to hear from The StoryMouse and to take a look at their phonics / early readers app "Bertie's ABC".

For those of you who haven't yet met Bertie the Guinea Pig he's the happy smiley little chap in our header image, and he's also the star of a series of children's storybook apps which you can find in the link below:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/stories-bertie-guinea-pig/id458976567?mt=8 (iPhone)

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/stories-bertie-guinea-pig/id458976567?mt=8 (iPad)

Check those out but of course today don't miss out on Bertie's ABC as it's free on the app store:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/berties-abc/id642465878?mt=8 (iPhone)

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/berties-abc/id642465878?mt=8 (iPad)

Diving into the app, it's very easy and intuitive to use with a good user interface (vitally important for kid apps) and nice clear speech and sounds (with lots of squeaks from Bertie himself).

The app is divided up into several minigames:

• Bertie's ABC - Lots of rhymes and fun sounds as children learn their letters
• Letters and Sounds - A more interactive way of listening to letters, learning them and using them
• The Carrot Quiz, Big and Small (Capitals and lower case letters) and Matching Pairs - Some game fun to play with once kids get a bit worn out from wrestling with letters. 

"Trampoline" and "Insides" from Book 2. Do not get these two confused

All round good egg and top tweeter, maker of mirth and rib-ticking rhymer extraordinaire Colin West popped up in our Twitter timeline to tell us that his "Big Book of Nonsense" series is now free on iTunes for your iPad.

Here are the links to all three "Big Book Of Nonsense" e-versions (UK Versions)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The above screenshot gives you a tiny idea of how great these are. If you fancy a full review of Part 1, here's what we wrote about it.

Back when we ran an article on how to write the 'perfect' app or e-book for children, we concentrated on various elements that can make or break a successful app.

We were given the chance to take a look at Playfuel Ltd's "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" - a new e-version of the classic story. Playfuel are a small start-up aiming to produce high quality e-books and storytelling and this is their first published app.

Straight off the bat we were very impressed by the artwork, and the story enhancing music and sound effects. For an e-book or app developer to truly stand out, these are the important foundations to base an app on.

Charlotte particularly liked the baby bear 'crying' and also this particular treatment of one of the most well-known and best loved fairy tales ever written (as a big Goldilocks fan she loves the story, probably because Goldilocks is more than a bit naughty!)

EDIT - Now the app has had its user interface tweaked, clear arrows at the sides of the screen show you exactly where you need to 'touch' to progress through the story. I would probably have made more of the fact that certain objects in the story can be interacted with (touch the bowls of porridge and the beds etc to see what happens!) but kids do naturally tend to find this out for themselves if they're familiar with how e-books and story apps work.

Some great touches in this like bouncing up the stairs and we particularly liked the 'build baby bear's chair' bit too.

Charlotte's best bit: Baby bear's crying and fixing his broken chair

Daddy's favourite bit: High quality art and sound, and so much better now the UI has been updated! Go geddit!

(Kindly supplied for review by Playfuel Ltd and thanks to Victoria Melbourne for the promo code)

Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner - an e-book 'done properly'

There seems to be a war raging between the luddites and the technocrati and it's a war that seems as odd as any other war. Two sides are gathered, with a fair amount of neutrals in the middle, claiming that their favourite method of enjoying stories is better than the other and will somehow 'win'.

As we know, in a war there are no winners and what this has to do with the #readitmummiesanddaddies2013 campaign is this. Quite simply, there's more than enough room on your shelves and in your tablet / kindle / e-reader for both Print books and E-books.

This week on ReadItDaddy we're going to be focusing on some of the best e-books around and some of the publishers who fully understand the statement topping this article - that 'E' doesn't just stand for 'Electronic' it stands for 'Enhanced'.

We've used Sally Gardner's utterly amazing and mind-bendingly brilliant book "Maggot Moon" as our first example of an e-book that brings more to the table than just the ability to flick through its pages on a tablet or e-reader. Working in conjunction with Sally herself, Hot Key Books have produced something that, at first glance, seems just like an ordinary everyday e-book. Flip your iPad on its side though, read the book in Landscape Mode and things start to happen...

The Maggot Moon introduction in 'Enhanced' mode. Hello Standish!

We start to see Maggot Moon how Sally herself sees the book. You see, Sally is Dyslexic and working with Hot Key Books has developed several rather clever methods to show readers how the book and how text appears to her. 

Great little box-outs and video clips enhance the written text at various points in the story

The lovely folk at Creativium dropped us a note to let us know about their new app for the iPad - Creativium - Paper Theatre, now available from the app store. This low price but content-rich app unleashes a child's imagination with some truly stunning art direction and brilliant animal characters, allowing children to make up their own stories and enjoy discovering through play.

Intuitive controls mean that even from a very early age, children can enjoy the app (as long as you don't mind your iPad getting sticky fingerprints all over it - which we don't!) and save their stories and scenes to show you later on. You can even record a few stories yourself to play back to your children!

Apps like this really make us happy and smiley at Read It Daddy because they allow children to start shaping and controlling the way their stories develop.

Give it a go and also drop by the Creativium site (which is also a bit special!) for more information.

The app is currently live on the app store, and a future update - Mysterious Night - will be introducing more scenes and characters,  available as a free update for current customers later on so get in quick!

We'll be putting together a full review as soon as I've stopped playing it and have let Charlotte have a go :)

The Phoenix Comic App (on iTunes)

The Phoenix Comic App (on iTunes)

The Land of Me - Songs and Rhymes (on iTunes)

If your children love making up stories, dive into "The Land of Me" and let their imaginations fly!

More details over at Made in Me's website

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)

A brief look at the top selling children's iPhone and iPad app chart is a sobering experience. Those of us lucky enough to have a shiny new tablet device costing hundreds of pounds, which we then let our sticky-fingered little mites onto for a moment's peace and quiet are, it seems, a fairly unimaginative lot when it comes to searching out apps.

A recent Guardian article highlighted the plight of app studios who consistently knock it out of the park when it comes to producing children's games and storytelling apps (or even e-books) that put the current licensed dreck to shame. Apps strung together lazily, by the numbers, in order to make a quick buck seem to be the favourites whereas others just disappear without a trace, languishing in the nether regions of the app charts and never seeing the light of day.

So without further ado, here's a dream top ten list (in no particular order) of apps and developers that you really ought to investigate instead of those dreadful Peppa Pig / Barbie dress-up games. Full links are provided for the UK iTunes Store and versions for the iPad.

1) Mademoiselle Daisy's New Friends (Developed by Square Igloo - £2.49)

Square Igloo absolutely 'get it' when it comes to kid's storytelling apps. They don't mess around with horrible Flash animations, they don't get their next door neighbour to lazily dub over their dialogue in a broad Glaswegian accent and they don't get their kids to bang out horrible tinny little tunes on a Casio keyboard for their apps. They employ professional voice actors, they produce proper soundtracks and - best of all - they produce rich, colourful and engaging visuals to accompany their beautifully written stories. Basically, if you're an app developer and you can nod to each of the items I've just listed, you're probably still not good enough to lick the boots of Square Igloo (but please, try at least!)

Mademoiselle Daisy's New Friends is the story of a lovely old lady who is moving into a new apartment. She's a little lost and lonely at first, but hits on a brilliant idea that will help her become a social gadfly.

The story's panels are so richly designed and beautiful that you'd almost wish (if you're a hoary old traditionalist like me) that they'd produce a printed picture book version of the stories. As they are though, as interactive apps, the Square Igloo stories are sumptuous and luxurious. Parents might baulk at the app prices but consider this: Where else could you get a deliciously illustrated and engaging children's picture book reeking of this sort of quality for £2.49?


2) The Crowing Poodle (Developed by FeeFiFoFun, Catherine Brickman and Suzanne Conway)

FeeFiFoFun are app developers, avid kickstarters and a collective with a whole brace of great ideas and stories to tell. "The Crowing Poodle" is the cute tale of a doggy with an identity crisis, who is driving everyone slightly mad by behaving like a cockerel first thing in the morning.

Catherine Brickman and Suzanne Conway's picture book is presented as a freebie interactive web resource, and as it stands, it puts a whole lot of paid-for children's e-books to shame with an entertaining story accompanied by top notch artwork.

The FeeFiFoFun Website is definitely worth a visit to see what they're up to and see other apps and stories that are available. They're currently trying to get funding for various kickstarter projects so if you're feeling generous, drop a few quid in their kickstarter pot and see what grows from your donation.

3) Dandelion (Developed by Protein One - £2.99)

This is really something special. An anti-bully app that delivers an interactive story that is presented in a really unique way. The hero of the story, a young lad named Benjanim, is specifically designed so that children can identify with him wholly throughout the story. Starting off as a rather forlorn and stooped figure, Benjamin's confidence and stature grows as the story progresses.

The way you interact with the app is really quite something, and it encourages a child's natural sense of curiosity and their need to explore.

The message behind the story is serious and weighty but if I had my way, this would be hard-wired into every single tablet device in every single school.


4) Me Books (Developed by Made in Me)

Now this is a genius idea, and one that could revolutionise the way authors get their books into electronic formats. Me Books is a fairly simple idea. Make some of the greatest children's books available via a clever portal store. Nothing new there so far, right? But the genius here is that the books are read by celebrities AND also tailored so that children can read, record and re-play their favourite books using their own voice. New and Old books can be retrofitted with 'hotspots' - little snippets of sound effects or children's dialogue that they make up themselves to make the books more interactive and fun.

It's such a simple idea, and the intuitive user interface on MeBooks is also a winner. It's not yet available but expect a HECK of a lot of fuss about this when it launches. It might not be popular with publishers (I'm still not exactly sure how this is going to work if you want to bring in your own books to digitise, the legal ramifications could give anyone a serious ulcer) but if it's successful, it could pave the way for great things.


5) The Ogress (Developed by La Souris Qui Raconte - £2.49)

The French are seriously leading the charge when it comes to developing brilliant story apps for tablet devices. There are so many brilliant studios in France, tapping into the rich vein of creativity and artistic innovation that sizzles in French art colleges and design houses.

La Souris Qui Raconte develop a series of dual-language storytelling apps including this stunner, The Ogress (La Ogresse) which tells a wonderful tale in the style of classics like those by The Brothers Grimm. Girls will love the (rather naughty) Princess Occidane and all the trouble she causes her two Fairy Godmothers - who get rather fed up with her bad behaviour and decide to teach her a lesson.

Beautifully illustrated and intuitive to control, The Ogress is one of many story apps by La Souris so definitely check out their iTunes Store Front.


6) Cinderella (Developed by Nosy Crow - £1.99)

There's a really good reason why Nosy Crow win so many awards and are heaped with praise by parents and children alike. Their apps and stories are absolutely brilliant. It comes as no surprise to know that one of their developers used to work at Rare (the ex Nintendo developers who were also Ultimate: Play the Game at one time). Nosy Crow have a knack of taking standard stories (like Cinderella) and turning them into interactive adventures par excellence.

Putting the kids into the story (with clever use of the iPad's cameras) is a genius idea. The apps are easy to control and ridiculously good value for money. With Nosy Crow making a lot of noise in publishing and in electronic form, they're the go-to for the publishing industry when it comes to seeing just how it should be done (Check out their freebie "Twits: Beard of Bees" app for some addictive score-setting fun too!)


7) Table Tots (Developed by Spinlight Studios - 69p)

 Parents know only too well the sort of chaos that ensues at home as soon as the kids get home from nursery or school, and start pulling all their toys out, playing with them for 5 minutes, then wandering off to do something else leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.

Table Tots is a bit like that. An app that allows children to play with various educational games and fun that soon descends into manic messiness and busy fun on screen. The beauty of Table Tots is that it's far easier to tidy up afterwards!

Spinlight Studios have developed a whole range of apps, from educational stuff like Table Tots to storytelling and interactive fiction like their brilliant Pixel and Parker stories. Engaging sound effects, bright colours and excellent artwork abound in their apps and they're extremely reasonably priced so if you're looking for games and stories to progress to after you've hoovered up all the free stuff your iPad can possibly hold, these are a good stepping stone to encourage you to dig your loose change out of your wallet and spend it on something a little more satisfying than a skinny latte.

8) Toca Store (Developed by Toca Boca / Bonnier Digital - £1.49)

No list of key children's app developers would be complete without mentioning the mighty Toca Boca / Bonnier Digital. They have the knack of producing interactive games and apps that can keep children absolutely absorbed and hooked for hour after hour. Consider how much it's worth to you to get a golden hour of absolute peace and quiet where your child is deeply involved and intrigued by something if you think Toca Boca's apps are costly! If you missed out on Toca Store being offered free recently, don't despair. It's still cheap enough and offers enough entertainment to warrant a look.

The key here is open-ended play. Toca Store lets children set up shop, set out their wares and then invite customers (usually mummy and daddy, or long-suffering siblings) to come and buy them.

With intuitive drag and drop controls, entertaining sounds and music, and the sort of flair for art and design we've come to expect from Toca Boca, Toca Store is simply excellent and excellently simple. Check out Toca Band too while you're at it, the latest release from Toca Boca - which is getting some seriously rave reviews.

9) Icky Fox and the Rainbow (Developed by Ickypen.co.uk - Coming Soon)

The requirements for children's stories don't change, no matter what the medium of delivery. Print books need engaging stories with great artwork, and something to spur a child's imagination. Interactive stories on tablet devices are exactly the same and this is something that publishers aren't quite getting to grips with. Thankfully Icky Pen understand this fully, and their range of children's interactive fiction absolutely epitomises how you can stretch the media to create a unique interface between your authors, illustrators and their intended audience. Keep an eye out for upcoming release "Icky Fox and the Rainbow" which is a fantastic, funny and sometimes rather mischievous story featuring a dubious fox and his food-hunting adventures.

10) Collins Big Cat Storytelling Apps (Developed by Collins Publishing - Free Downloads)

"Free" is the toughest price to match in any electronic market and "Free" is the price that causes developers, publishers and authors / illustrators to grow more grey hairs than any other price point. The problem is the expectation that once parents have spent a small fortune on a tablet device (which, thankfully, is becoming a thing of the past thanks to high powered cheap tablets hitting the market courtesy of Google and Amazon), you really don't want to shell out more money on expensive apps that might only provide an hour or so's entertainment.

Collins Big Cat Storytelling Apps are great, they're free, but more importantly they draw attention to what the publisher is doing elsewhere in its electronic publishing business. When you see a really good free app that is excellent quality, you're probably more likely to look to that developer / publisher in future to see what else they offer, and if they offer reasonably priced apps that lift the bar a notch more, then it's a relatively safe purchase.

The problem with "Free" on the app store in particular, is that it's often used as a way to drive premium-priced microcontent through to consumers via in-app purchases (which any sensible parent will instantly switch off on day one of ownership of any new tablet!) In the case of the Big Cat Storytelling apps, you can grab 8 brilliant fully-fledged storytelling apps for 0 pounds and 0 pence without having to worry that you're being stealthily fleeced. The decision is up to you whether you'll want to pay for Collins other superb paid-for apps and with the sheer quality of what's on offer, you will definitely be more inclined to. Letting kids' imaginations loose and involving them in the story telling process with their own creations is part and parcel of what Collins are doing. The more developers that get this message, the better and the more developers that adopt the approach of putting out excellent quality free apps alongside their paid-for stuff, the more likely we are to get past this crazy mentality of reaming the customer for all their worth or being a cheapskate customer when it comes to shelling out real money for really good quality apps.

Phew! That's the end of our article. I hope some of the links and apps mentioned give you food for thought next time you switch on the iPad or Android Device and start trawling the e-stores.

Regular visitors to this blog will probably have guessed that Charlotte has a soft spot for monsters. Fat ones, thin ones, hairy ones or scary ones, she loves them. Last night after school we let her have some time on the iPad and she started scribbling in one of the art packages with her fingers. She was drawing...a monster. I watched as she drew the monster first, saying "He's not very happy with the person next to him" - so she drew the outline, then those amazingly expressive eyes, and then finally the 'not happy' mouth. It was a fantastic little scribble, considering how hateful iPads are to draw on.

Then she proceeded to draw the 'person the monster wasn't happy with. "He's a boy" said Charlotte as she scribbled a fairly tidy little figure and the monster reaching out with a rather nasty looking spindly claw.

Sure, to many of you it just looks like childish scribble - but this is the first drawing Charlotte has done where she's described what she's drawing as she draws it, and actually works on the composition, the expressions and the 'story' of the picture to compose something pretty neat.

I love it, she actually said she thinks its one of her best drawings. I don't normally do the gushy parent thing but this impressed me to pieces.

Let's kick off this week's app reviews with a look at something fun, that's designed to improve your child's dexterity rather than tax their brain with phonics and number puzzles. Toca Kitchen Monsters is ridiculous fun. Set in a messy kitchen that is visited by hungry monsters, with a well stocked fridge and lots of kitchen gadgetry to cook up a storm with.

The main appeal of the Toca apps is the superb production values. Silky-smooth animation on the monster characters is complimented by all sorts of crazy and funny sound effects (kids just seem to automatically self-destruct with laughter whenever they hear a fart noise but TKM is thankfully a little more subtle than that, most of the time!)

Ingredients are fetched from the fridge and either fed raw to the monsters, or processed in a variety of amusing ways. Fried broccoli? Well why not! Liquidized steak? Heck yes!

The reactions from the monsters when you feed them something yummy (or yucky) is quite amusing. In fact it's eerily like the reaction you get when you dish up a curry to your youngster after realising that one of your key ingredients (curry powder) wasn't on the weekly shop. Oops! Sorry Charlotte!

Charlotte's best bit: The liquidizer. Everything goes in it!

Daddy's favourite bit: The superb production values on this, and the fact that you get quite a good laugh from the free version without needing to pay for the full app.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - App of the Week

iTunes Link: Toca Kitchen Monsters (Free)

Our first app of the week award goes to a real doozy. The Froobles from Top That! Publishing, is exactly the sort of app that other publishers and developers need to take a long hard look at before they leap into the foray of producing educational and engaging apps for kids.

Available free at the moment (Free until the 6th August with in-app purchases for extra character stories), The Froobles gets the balance of packing out the 'free' version of the app with so much content that you'll definitely be back for more.

With engaging fruit and vegetable characters acting out stories (read by showbiz luminaries like Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen), the app doesn't just stop at fun and entertaining stories, there are some seriously neat little activities in there too.

We'll skip mentioning the matching pairs game (sigh, how we hate those!) and take a look at the other more interesting stuff.

The colouring game is fun and allows your child to colour in scenes from the stories, and the characters too. It's all very easy to use with a slick user interface that most toddlers will be right at home with (let's face it, kids are far better at using these things than we are - but anything that means they aren't screaming at you to change screens or games is always most welcome).

There are some neat little phonics games where children can match up letters to complete puzzles of words. The only drawback here is that the app does allow you to drop in the puzzle pieces in any order, I think it would've been better and more educational if kids had to follow the proper order of the word but if you're joining in with them, you can always encourage them to do this yourself.

The animated story is fun (Johnny Vaughan seems to be an excellent children's narrator, who knew?) and leads neatly into the real star attraction of the app.

Using pre-set scenery (though, here's a future idea guys, how about letting kids draw their own?), you can drop in characters and props and build your own mini plays. Setting the iPad to record your efforts, you can move characters in real time and even record voices as they 'speak'. Needless to say, the more educational parts of the app were swiftly brushed aside in favour of this, and Charlotte spent hours playing with it. Again there's the slight niggle of having the waste bin (which you can dispose of unwanted bits and bobs in) too near the 'stage' at the top of the screen so you'll have to teach your little ones not to get their characters too close to this or they'll lose them during their plays.

Minor niggles aside, this is easily one of the best toddler-friendly apps we've seen. Additional stories are charged at the rather reasonable sum of 69p (with Chloe, Tessa and Orlando amongst the extra character stories available now).

As a standalone freebie download though, it's still absolutely packed to the gills and really stands out in a sea of fairly mundane and samey apps, so grab it while you can.

Charlotte's best bit: The play maker, an absolute work of genius.

Daddy's favourite bit: Slick user interface, plenty of content and very nicely produced.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars, App of the Week