Mr. Sandman: Fear of the Dark

After a bedtime story from Mummy, a young boy lies under the covers awaiting sleep. Trouble is, he’s afraid of the dark. After a visit from the Sandman, the boy awakens in a lush dream world where he is led through landscapes and night skies by a “noble eagle owl” who explains, scene by scene, why the darkness is nothing to fear.

Interactive elements are used to transition from page to page, such as tilting the iPad from side to side, erasing the scene to reveal a new scene beneath, and whispering “shh” into the microphone. While the technology behind the transitions themselves is innovative and appropriately connects to what’s happening in the story at each moment, finding the interactive elements is not always easy.

The navigation wheel, present at all times in the bottom left corner, contains a question mark icon that clearly explains how to turn each page. However, I didn’t discover this handy tool until I spent a good ten minutes poking and pinching at the first few screens. This app would benefit from a brief explanation of the navigation wheel’s icons on the menu screen, letting users know from the beginning that help is available if they’re having trouble discovering the hidden interactive elements on their own.

The least impressive aspect of this app is the story itself. The clunky text over-tells at every opportunity, leaving no room for the stunning visuals to pull narrative weight, and by the end, you’ve been instructed exactly how to feel about darkness. The masterful design of this app shines, but I wonder if the glare of technology can blind us to the lack of literary merit. Do we hold children’s storybook apps to a different critical standard than children’s books? I hope not.

Available for iPad (requires iOS 4.3 or later) in seven languages; $3.99.

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Akashic Books is releasing a “children’s version” of Go the Fuck to Sleep. So now parents can harangue their children to sleep for realz.

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Coming this October from Akashic Books.

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“If we were very, very, very naughty, and wouldn’t be good, what then?”

Then,” said the mother sadly–and while she spoke her eyes filled with tears, and a sob almost choked her– “then,” she said, “I should have to go away and leave you, and to send home a new mother, with glass eyes and a wooden tail.”

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But the person who scares me more than all the wolves and witches put together is one of the Times commenters:

As much as I love books, I’m making up stories for my four year old niece instead of reading books. It sharpens my imagination, makes bedtime more exciting for both of us and enables me to control content. Often it is interactive too–sometimes I invite my niece to make up new characters or decide on the ending.

I think we need to challenge ourselves to rely less on existing stories in favor of homespun, age-appropriate content for our little ones.

I think I would find it very hard to sleep with that person in my house.

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Mads seemed content and Julia politely waiting until we got to something with princesses in it.

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I told you Martha and I were writing a book, but apparently somebody, um, beat us to it. More than a century ago.

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Phew. If only they could do this with the old Magic Attic books, which apparently invite readers to join a fan club by calling an 800 number which time and fate have transformed into a phone sex line. And I wonder what’s happened to 537-3331, Amy’s phone number in I Am the Cheese. If you figured out the area code you could find yourself talking to “Amy’s father,” aka Robert Cormier. Or so I was told.

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