A few weeks ago, I wrote about many great literacy activities to be found on the iPad. I closed the post saying that I was sure my favorite apps would quickly change and indeed they have. When a good friend asked recently what book apps I would recommend, I became overwhelmed by the choices and it’s taken me days to decide how to answer her.

My current favorites are not necessarily the apps that can stand in for read aloud time when you are desperate like Tales 2 Go or Tumble Books To Go.

Rather they are apps based on the work of three great ‘real world’ authors.

Don’t Let the Pigeon Run This App! by Mo Willems is just as genius as his books. In this app, you can create your own story making not only visual choices but by recording your own voice to be heard during the telling. You can listen to favorite stories and learn how to draw the pigeon. Both Caroline and Katherine interact with app until I tell them to stop. Which is usually right around the time that they start including goofy (and sometimes potty related!) phrases into the the ‘create own story’ section…

Long time readers of this blog may remember that the girls and I were lucky enough to meet Tad Hills last year. His books are great and so is the new app based on How Rocket Learned to Read. The app allows you to read the story to yourself, hear the story read to you or play alphabet and sight word game

Another new app for us is Wild About Books one of Random House Children’s Books apps. The app is new but not the great book by Judy Sierra and illustrated by Marc Brown. With this app, we can read to ourselves or listen to the story narrated. As with many apps, we can watch the pictures come to life, always fun especially with the illustrations of Marc Brown.

More new favorites to come, I’m sure…