Cozmo's Day Off - ebook

Rating: 5 out of 5

Application: iPhone/iPad

Seller: Ayars Animation Inc

Price at time of Review: $4.99 AU (there is also a free lite version)

I have not been a huge fan of ebooks for children on the iPhone/iPad. Most of the ones I have downloaded were literally a slide show with pictures. For me this is was just a wasted opportunity. But Cozmo's Day off is not a narrated slide show, it is a fully interactive experience for kids and adults alike. THIS is how a children's ebook should be.

Cozmo is a little green alien who is having one of "those" days. He is trying to get to work and everything is going wrong. The story follows Cozmo's journey as he tries to get to work.

The story:

• The illustrations are amazing, they are bright colourful and incredibly detailed. Also the quality of the images and graphics is evident.
• Cozmo is incredibly adorable and likable.
• The narrator has a wonderful animated voice, it reminds me of those voices on the tv adverts from the 50's. I loved it and its the first narrated children's ebook I haven't wanted to change.
• The story is told through rhyme and is lyrical which makes it fun to read aloud. It is simple and cute with lines.

The cool stuff:

• Virtually everything on the screen can be animated. Just touch around the screen and you will be amazed at what happens. Things play music, move, jump, or in the case of the space ship steal alarm clocks. Some things need to be touched first to activate other things, and some things will say/do different things every time you touch them.
• Some pages have puzzles and games to play. I had way to much fun playing the "whack the alien" type game on one page.
• You can play with the narrators voice. By moving the slider you can have a normal voice, or you can have a robot or squeaky alien! I kept mine in the middle with the normal but slightly over the top narrators voice.
• You can record your own voice if you so wish.

My thoughts:

I am not sure if children over 5 would get much out of the story. The story is simple and cute, like wise the games are very basic. But for kids under 5 (my son is 15 months) they will love it. My son was entranced with the story and kept giving me big broad smiles as each new thing happened.

There is a free lite version which has some very basic animated features, if you want to give it a try first. I got this one first but fell in love with the story and pictures, and more importantly my son adored it so I happily paid for the full version. I would heartily recommend this ebook to anyone who has an iphone or ipad.