Oct

iStoryTime Releases Apple’s First Interactive iBook Title

GoodEReader.com has covered several news items from iStoryTime, the interactive children’s book app publisher. iStoryTime is a publisher under parent-company zuuka, a worldwide leader in digital content for children and holder of a top market leading position thanks to its work with such publishers as Random House and HarperCollins, as well as animation studios such as Dreamworks. With over more than 130 titles available for download from the iTunes store for the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone, and additional content available for the NOOK Color and upcoming Amazon Kindle Fire, iStoryTime titles are some of the top selling children’s app books.

Now, iStoryTime is branching out into interactive ebooks, thanks to being tapped as the publisher for Apple’s first interactive children’s book for iBooks. Apple released Five Little Pumpkins today, a collaboration from HarperCollins Children’s Books and zuuka’s in-house studio in order to develop Dan Yaccarino’s illustrations as an ebook. This isn’t zuuka’s first collaboration with HarperCollins, as iStoryTime released the children’s publisher’s title Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch earlier this month, the first time the popular puppy has been animated into a cover-to-cover interactive digital title.

This is Apple’s first venture into the animation and interactive capabilities of EPUB3 for the iBook app for juvenile literature. EPUB3 was launched in May at the IDPF Digital Publishing Conference at BookExpo America to great fanfare based on the new capabilities it brought to digital books.

zuuka is no stranger to being invited to take on projects of this scale in the world of children’s digital content. Founder Woody Sears recently presented on a panel for children’s digital content at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and again spoke today at a forum with executives from twenty other companies at the Launch ‘Pad Tablet Conference about the “Tablet Revolution.” Sears’ expertise comes from being a part of the company that has brought storybook apps and ebooks to more than 80 countries and has had numerous bestselling titles in the iTunes App Store.

“With numerous top-rated digital storybooks on the iPad and NOOK Color, we’re honored to be chosen to speak alongside today’s tablet innovators,” said Sears. “Tablets have opened up an enormous opportunity to deliver an even more immersive user experience, which our design and development team has executed beautifully time and time again.”

Mercy Pilkington (1130 Posts)

Mercy Pilkington is a young-adult author and a teacher in a correctional facility. She does not have a single textbook in her classroom. With the top-of-the-line technology at her disposal and the low reading ability of many of her students, there’s no need for standard paper texts. Instead she relies on e-readers, iPads, desktop PCs, Polycom video conferencing equipment for virtual field trips, live streaming for science demonstrations, and text-to-speech read-aloud software to teach English and science. Within the next ten years, public school classrooms across the country are going to look a lot more like Mercy’s classroom because the educational possibilities with these kinds of technologies are limitless. Have a question? Send an email to mercypilkington@yahoo.com