Blown away by The Fantastic Flying Books Of Mr. Morris Lessmore app for iPad

Thanks to Justin Chanda for the heads-up on an article in The Atlantic which prompt me to buy an iPad book called The Fantastic Flying Books Of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Kudos to Moonbot Studios and author William Joyce. I LOVE this app.

This app is part storybook, part game, and part animation. Wonderful writing and animation, plus the interactive bits are well-integrated and enhance the story rather than distract from it. A question I posted in Twitter a while back prompted much discussion on Twitter and Google+ about what exactly makes a children's ebook (vs a game), and I'm nearly finished compiling people's comments into an article...I definitely have to mention Moonbot's book app!

Anyway, the story's about a book-obsessed fellow who gets swept away by a storm and ends up in a country house filled with bookish fun. See the trailer above for more info.

Simon & Schuster is publishing a book based on the app/film, and Dreamworks is coming out with a movie in 2012.

Related links:

How to Build the Pixar of the iPad Age in Shreveport, Louisiana

An Ex-Pixar Designer Creates Astounding Kids' Book On iPad

William Joyce

Video: A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work

Thought-provoking video showing a baby who tries to interact with a print magazine the same way as she does with an iPad.

I'm curious, though. To you parents out there with babies AND iPads: is this consistent with your own experience?

Sketch Club App for iPad: Fun To Use, With Built-In Community

Sketch Club app iTunes link

My Sketch Club profile

Easy to use and to upload. What I like most about this app: the Sketch Club community. Fun to see the wide range of artist experience levels, plus some artists include screenshots of their works-in-progress as well as videos. Here's my test video, drawing a quickie dragon:

Google+ Directory of Kidlit/Story Book App Developers

I've started up an "add your own listing" directory on Google+ of kidlit / story app developers, for those interested. Click the image above or the link below:

http://bit.ly/GP-kidlit-app

iPad Drawing Apps: Procreate

I'm always interesting in drawing/painting apps for the iPad, so tried out Procreate for the first time today.

See my Pixel Shavings post for a step-by-step description on how I created the image above.