Get together with your kids for some customizable tales this week. MySkazka lets kids personalize the details of several different stories (and even choose the illustrations) with a lesson to be learned in each one. Little Red Riding Hood takes the classic fairy tale and turns it into a choose-your-own adventure story.
Garry Froehlich Jellybean Tunes
MySkazka – Bedtime Stories
MySkazka is a customizable storybook app. Each story (there are currently seven) lets kids choose the names of characters, cities, favourite songs, toys, friends and more to make the tale more personalized. Interestingly they can also choose between two or three different animated images for each page of the story. Once the story is customized, kids read their tale, or can have an automated voice read it to them (which unfortunately could use some improvement). Each story ends with discussion questions that bring out the lessons learned in the story. MySkazka offers more customization and richer tales than similar apps. It offers a free trial with a subscription after the trial has ended.
Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood is a retelling of the classic story, with some minor decision making to change the ending. Red Riding Hood sets out to see her grandmother and meets a hunter, a puppy, and the wolf along with way. Two of the encounters offer choices of how to respond, with one of them affecting how the story ends. The graphics and animation are quite good, and the music is cheerful. There is no narration, or word highlighting, and the story unfolds in more of a game style than a digital book. The concept of ‘choose your own adventure’ applied to a children’s story is a good one, but I would have liked to have seen more choices.
