The app, developed by Joyce’s own Moonbot Studios (2011), is a hybrid of the short film and the picture book. As in the film, music and animation move the story along, providing a cinematic flow. But, like the picture book, the app also includes a textual story to follow and still images to view. This combination, with the addition of evenly paced narration and interactive features, sets the app version of Morris Lessmore apart from its companions.

By now the story is familiar to many: Morris Lessmore loves stories and surrounds himself with books. When a terrible storm destroys his home, he is left to wander. He encounters a woman with flying books and follows one of the volumes to a library, where he spends many years caring for the books and sharing them with others. When he finally departs the library, he leaves his own story behind. A little girl finds it and starts reading, bringing the tale full-circle.

The app relies on user participation throughout the story to advance (or enhance) the narrative. Sometimes this interaction is as simple as turning the pages or tapping highlighted images on the screen to make them move, change, or produce sound (i.e., opening a door for Morris to fall through, or having him throw a book in the air to make it fly).

More elaborate activities invite users to play the story’s musical motif “Pop Goes the Weasel” on a piano keyboard, write on the pages of a book, put together a puzzle, or make Morris fly (by tilting their device). This flying activity — meant to represent the theme of losing oneself among the words in a book — is a little awkward to maneuver, and doesn’t quite produce the desired effect of flying through a story (the words don’t move past Morris as you’re flying him around the screen). Regardless, it’s obvious from the app’s variety of interactive features that Moonbot Studios is pushing the boundaries of app innovation and presentation.

My favorite interactive feature involves helping Morris hand out books to library patrons. When a book — either A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, Frankenstein, or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — is given to one of the three individuals in line, that person changes from grayscale to full color (a metaphor used throughout the story to illustrate how reading can brighten lives). Suddenly dressed like a character from that book, the patron quotes one of the character’s lines; the transformations are humorous to say the least. Other allusions to famous tales occur earlier in the narrative; when Morris enters the library for the first time, users tap the books to hear famous lines by Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Poe, and Conan Doyle.

The easy-to-access settings menu gives control over music, narration, language, and text, making this a very user-friendly app. Some cool extra features: users can watch the award-winning animated short film in its entirety along with an additional “making of” video.

I found this app, like the film and book, to be a story worth telling — I’m happy to have the opportunity to experience it in a range of different formats. I think Morris would be, too. Available for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, $4.99 in the App Store.

A separate IMAG-N-O-TRON app (requires later generations of Apple devices  with iOS5 and a WiFi connection; $0.99) allows users to point their device at a page of the print book and watch it come to life on the screen.

The post The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore app review appeared first on The Horn Book.

[cue Star Wars theme song]

Tomorrow, Saturday October 6, 2012 is the first National Star Wars Reads Day, designed to “celebrate reading and Star Wars.” While this may be an unusual pairing, I’m all for promoting events that encourage children to read. So in honor of the inaugural event, I’ve taken a look at three new Star Wars books that have recently arrived in the office.

Some fans might say it’s never too early to get kids interested in the Star Wars universe. Perhaps that’s why Lucas Books (through publisher Scholastic) has started a line of Star Wars board books. Numbers and counting concepts aside, Star Wars 123 (July 2012) is geared more toward Star Wars-fanatic parents than their newborns. The shiny images may catch a baby’s attention for a few seconds, but the vocabulary and subject matter are a “galaxy far, far away” from what most toddlers are capable of comprehending. The book could be appreciated as a baby shower or novelty gift; in that case, consider pairing it with Star Wars ABC.

Pop-up master Matthew Reinhart’s Star Wars: A Galactic Pop-Up Adventure (Orchard/Scholastic, October 2012) would be a perfect present for school-age children obsessed with the film series — especially if they’re into the Clone Wars. Over the five foldout spreads in this book, readers learn all about the Star Wars universe as depicted in Episodes 1–3 of George Lucas’s famous film franchise. Giant pop-ups portray podracing, Nexu and Acklay monsters, General Grievous, Vulture droid fighters and a Jedi Interceptor, and Lord Darth Vader himself — complete with a light-up lightsaber that changes from Jedi blue to Sith red!! The book, a marvel of paper engineering, maximizes space by including detailed text inside foldout mini-books containing their own small pop-ups.

Darth Vader in all his pop-up glory

Even though the book focuses specifically on the Clone Wars (I admit my loyalty lies with the original films 4–6), the pop-ups are delicate, and it probably won’t have a long library shelf life, Reinhart should be commended for the book’s ambitiousness, comprehensiveness, and overall WOW-ness. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a second book featuring Episodes 4–6!

With a foreword appropriately written by middle-grade author Tom Angleberger (The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, Darth Paper Strikes Back, and The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee), Chris Alexander’s book Star Wars Origami: 36 Amazing Paper-Folding Projects from a Galaxy, Far, Far Away… (Workman, August 2012) will excite Star Wars fans who are also into making things (the same way Star Wars Legos have thrilled them for years). But be warned: this book is not for the casual origami enthusiast. The projects take a lot of practice, skill, and patience to complete (similar to Jedi training). Those who are not origami masters may end up frustrated, with a lot of crumpled paper. Though the projects are broken down by level of difficulty, don’t be deceived. I tried two of the “youngling” (easy) projects and let’s just say they are not my finest artistic achievements.

two “youngling” (i.e., “easy”) projects

I’m a little apprehensive about trying any of the harder projects after my pitiful attempts at the easy ones! The projects require a strong familiarity with origami folds, so I highly recommend reading the origami basics section thoroughly before proceeding. Each project is introduced with a brief description and a film still of the character or ship, and trivia is interspersed throughout to test your knowledge of all things Star Wars. Perhaps coolest of all: 72 sheets of specially patterned Star Wars origami paper! I spent a lot of time flipping through the book trying to decide which favorite ships and characters I wanted to re-create first. Lightsabers, R2-D2, Yoda, C-3PO, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, The Death Star, Millennium Falcon, TIE Fighter, X-wing Starfighter, my list goes on and on. I only wish Alexander had included an origami version of an Ewok! After my failed attempts at Han and the Death Star I was disheartened, but I’m determined to persevere and keep trying out different projects in my spare time (perhaps during a Star Wars movie marathon?).

The website for tomorrow’s event shows a map of sites where events will take place in honor of the day. If you can’t make it to one of the events, activity kits on the website offer recipes, crafts, coloring pages, trivia, and games young padawans (and adult Jedi-wannabes) can do at home — including some origami and pop-ups! But as you tackle any of these projects tomorrow, remember the wise words of Yoda: “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”

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My First Root Children (Floris Books, June 2012) is an abbreviated version of the 1906 classic German tale of Mother Earth and her underground children, who awaken after a long winter to prepare the world for spring—sending the insects above ground, encouraging the flowers to bloom, and more. The board book version manages to retain all of the original artwork, altered slightly in scale, but the text is a loose interpretation. In a contemporary update, it focuses more upon the children’s play and less upon their capacity as workers to usher in the season. Gone also are the staid gender roles of the original, in which girls make spring dresses in their favorite colors and boys deal with the bugs. In this new version, dress-making is a gender-neutral activity and everyone attends to the insects: “Then the children helped the beetles, bumblebees and ladybirds to get ready.” The familiar muted palette—earth tones, if you will—translates nicely to board book format and is a welcome respite from the bright, primary color-saturated standard.

But just like a fall chill, the abrupt ending of this version jars the reader out of illustration-induced warm-weather bliss: “‘Come inside!’ said Mother Earth. ‘It’s nearly winter, and it’s time for bed.’” Sounds like a good place to spend winter in Boston to me…

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This children’s literature/theater connection sparked my curiosity, so I did a little research on the topic. Broadway is currently running three other shows with ties to children’s books: Mary Poppins, a theatrical adaptation of the Disney film, itself loosely based on the P. L. Travers novel; War Horse, based on the middle-grade novel by Michael Morpurgo and winner of last year’s Tony Award for best play; and Wicked, the hit musical about the witches of Oz, based on Gregory Maguire’s adult book of the same name, which was inspired by L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Off-Broadway, there are even more children’s book–based shows: The Berenstain Bears LIVE! in Family Matters, The Musical; Freckleface Strawberry, The Musical (based on picture books by Julianne Moore); Into the Woods (Sondheim’s long-running, Tony Award–winning reimagining of classic fairy tales); and Potted Potter.

And that’s just what’s playing in NYC! A quick Google search brings up regional productions of shows such as Seussical; Little Women; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: A Musical; James and the Giant Peach; Peter Pan; and Charlotte’s Web.

Adapting books for the theater makes sense because it taps into an existing fan base. But I think adapting children’s books for the stage does something more: it provides kids with an early introduction and connection to the enriching world of live theater, perhaps sparking a lifelong appreciation for and interest in the arts. For parents looking for summer activities to do with their kids, this type of entertainment should fit the (play)bill.

Do you know of other children’s books that have been turned into plays or musicals? Which children’s books or young adult novels would you like to see adapted for the theater?

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This edition keeps the original text intact, which I appreciated. Reading the story aloud at my desk, I relished each Seussian rhyme in stanzas scattered across the eight colorful spreads. Seuss’s tall Truffula Trees and the Once-ler’s factory are perfectly suited to appear as pop-ups; gatefold panels offer additional pop-ups, pull tabs, and special effects to bring the story to life. As with any pop-up book, if read enough times this one will show its age eventually, but the spreads are well chosen and Seuss’s text and illustrations are creatively placed. I only wish Random House would have used recycled paper—it would have been appropriate given the book’s message!

And here’s another Lorax-related treat: check out Stephen Colbert’s discussion of the plethora of movie tie-ins that have been popping up everywhere (and in unlikely places). Enjoy his tribute to Seuss’s rhymes at the end of the clip!

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