The book is no longer a book. This charming iPad remake of Paddington Bear goes way beyond early “interactive” conversions of linear texts by deploying iPad’s camera to fascinating effect.
Children can read along with the included narrator voice, or with alternative readings that can be pre-recorded by their parents or elder sibling using iPad’s integrated video camera and microphone.
Together with a feature with kids can use to photograph themselves with Paddington, written by Michael Bond, the effect is one of the most engaging reworkings of a “book” for touchscreen devices – even if the recordings may allow parents to get out of reading actual bed-time stories in-person alongside junior.
The app is made by Shoreditch, London-based Bold Creative, which, following its iPad remake of The Heart and the Bottle for HarperCollins, has got a contract for six classic children’s books with the publisher. iPaddington is the first; Mog is next up.
