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)

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. 

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