Rom and the whale of dreams App Review
App Info
Price: $2.99
Overview
Rom and the Whale of Dreams is a unique story with a dreamlike feel. The music, illustrations and narration make the story come alive.
Features include:
- Multilingual – three languages
- Narration
- Light animation
Quality
This app contains quality design elements that will make the reader feel part of the story. The narration and illustrations pull you in right from the beginning.
A page index allows for easy movement through the book. The addition of a more immediate method for returning to the first page from the last would be desirable.
Music and sounds can be muted easily by use of the buttons located at the bottom of each page.
While quality design elements are used throughout there are times when text is difficult to read due to size, color and location on the page. The addition of text highlighting would be nice, too.
Education
This app incorporates a number of multilingual features; the entire story can be read in English with an integrated on-page translation bar (which can be hidden or shown easily) with translation of the page in either Spanish or Chinese. Also, available on each page is a multilingual vocabulary section showing select terms in all three languages, touch the word in any of the languages to hear the word spoken.
No text highlighting is available; text highlighting is an important feature for the targeted audience of 6-11 year olds. The ability to repeat narration would be a plus, too.
Entertainment
The quality design elements, such as illustrations, music and narration, will keep the reader interested in this enchanting story. Light animations are available throughout, but do not distract the reader. It would be nice if animations could be repeated if desired.
The app does not include additional activities which may be a fun addition to the app and possibly extend the life of the app on a family’s device.
Value
Rom and the Whale of Dreams is an iPad only app. The addition of text highlighting and other features would make the price a bit more appealing.
Child Friendliness
Users of all ages will find this app easy to use, some may need assistance accessing the multilingual features or using the page index to return to the beginning of the book.
This app does not contain social media links, in-apps and such. Parents will have no worries in allowing their children to use the app.