Available in the App Store

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Simone and the Night Monsters is a great personalized story book that captures the essence of a “scary” story that’s not too scary for kids.

The story follows the bed time battles of Simone with the monsters in her room, the character seems a little scared at first but always seems brave enough to take on the next challenge – including an exasperated mother trying to get the child to bed! It might be a little scary for younger or more sensitive children, but my own kids (5, 7, 9) had no problems with the story line.

With illustrations by Italian artist, Graziano Vitale, Simone and the Night Monsters is styled more like a traditional book than an app. Each page has an animated illustration alongside the text, but the page itself is not interactive. In this case, I think the lack of interaction is okay, but I think that many parents and kids will expect more from an app.

One of the best elements about the book is the ability to personalize the characters names in the books. In our household, this meant taking turns so that each child could be the main character – the rest of the family and pets filled in the supporting roles.

You can record your own voice to narrate the story – which is also a little tricky if you need to do more than one version as you’ll need to re-record your voice. Another possibility would be to have an option to record just the characters names and have the rest of the book prerecorded.

Features:

  • Personalize the story
  • Read Myself
  • Record your voice

Improvements?

For me, I expect a little more interactivity in an app vs. an eBook so I always like to see extras in addition to the story. Also, as a straight eBook this app misses some key features like Read To Me and word highlighting. Having this app neither interactive app or eBook seems to make this app feel a little unfinished.

Bottom-line:

Kids will love being able to put themselves into this fun, creative story, but don’t expect any interactive extras.

 

 

 

Simone is an interactive picture book for children from 3 to 9 years old.
It is a great bedtime story where you can change the character’s names and record parent’s voice as narrator.

Painted by the Italian talented illustrator Graziano Vitale,
which come from a background of designing children’s books that span for 20 years.

This is the story about Simone that is scared by monsters hidden in his bedroom.
The story contains all elements of a classic bedtime story plus a surprising ending.

This App focus on utilizing at best the device to create the animations children will love!
A stunning soundtrack bring the story to be a unique event.
Parents can record their own voices for each page.
Then is possible to watch the story with their narrator voice over the sound effects!
Very good for children to listen for their parent’s voices when they aren’t available.

Features of this children e-book:

  • The character’s name can be changed and also the monster’s names!
  • Record your own voice for each page as the Narrator and listen mixed with the soundtrack
  • The story can be watched with colorful animations and sound with page by page turn.
  • The story can be read as normal paper book without effects.
  • Abandon the story before the end, bookmark the page to come back to it later on.