Available in the App Store

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Awesome deal alert! The beautiful Christmas Eve animated eBook from So Ouat is free through New Year’s Eve. That means you can treat your family to a delightful holiday tale full of sparkling details and adorable cartoon animations for nothing. Sounds like Christmas is coming a little early this year.

The Christmas Eve eBook tells the story of little Nina, and her quest to prove to her mom that Santa does exist. And, with a little help from ole St. Nick and her special perfume, she does. Not only is the story adorable and modern, it’s also peppered with educational extras that we’ve come to expect from So Ouat. Much like their Peter Pan title that we reviewed a few weeks ago, the Christmas Eve eBook has special features that illustrate and explain common words, identify vowels and even display the story in cursive writing if you so desire. It’s also completely bilingual with full support in French.

Also, much to our delight, the read-to-me story telling does not pause every single time the user touches the screen like the Peter Pan app did. We love the app extras, such as a scene organizing puzzle, but miss the option to record our very own version of the story to enjoy.

Yes, you do have to do a little registering by email to see the funny pictures Santa and his helpers take at Nina’s house. But that’s a small price to pay for childish delight. I defy even the stodgiest of Scrooges not to crack a smile at Santa giving his elf friend Matthew bunny ears, or conga lining across the living room with a reindeer.

There are still a lot of ads for other So Ouat titles in the Christmas Eve eBook app, so proceed with caution and password protect your iTunes downloads to avoid accidental purchases.

Bottom line

Christmas Eve is an amazing value, an eBook chock full of holiday cheer and kid-friendly extras. Watch out for ads that lead users out of the app.

Designed for ages 3 to 10, this delightful app sparks the spirit of Christmas and captures the magic of Santa Claus and his elves. The universal version of Christmas Eve is available FREE through the end of 2011!

This festive installment in an award-winning line of interactive storybooks, Christmas Eve features charismatic artwork and charming animations that bring the magic of Santa Claus right to your little ones’ fingertips, just in time for some Holiday magic! Both on-screen text and audio narration are included, so children can have the story read to them or read it on their own.

In addition, this enhanced HD version of Christmas Eve includes interactive learning features such as touch pronunciation (touch a word to hear it spoken), “explain to me” (a word’s definition and its opposite are given, to provide context for unfamiliar words), “show me” (an illustration displays to represent a word), and “Karaoke reading” (a fun tool that helps children learn to read the story them Regular Price: FREE