When I Grow Up – Little Critter

Review & Giveaway

Developer: Oceanhouse Media

Review:

(by Christie)

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Oceanhouse Media has published another Little Critter omBook called When I Grow Up. For those unfamiliar, Little Critter is a series of stories written by Mercer Mayer about Little Critter’s childhood. Little Critter is a hamster character who is full of imagination, love, and of course mischief! Little Critter is a great series as children can easily identify with his adventures and emotions and also helps teachers, parents, and kids themselves be aware of emotions and how to deal with those situations.

Hurray!!!! As the mother of two girls, I’m excited to see a book starring Little Sister! In fact, Little Critter himself was not even mentioned or appear in the illustrations! In When I Grow Up, Little Sister is out playing in her yard dancing and thinking about all the things she will be when she grows up! And when she gets tired of one thing, she will happily proceed to another job. She has plenty of jobs in mind for herself as soon as she grows up, ranging from a circus clown to a truck driver to a police officer to a baker! My preschooler immediately got excited it was all about Little Sister, so she looks forward to more of those. She was amazed at all the jobs Little Sister wanted to have. She thought a few of the jobs were silly, but it gave us a chance to talk about how each person is different and has different goals. With all these omBooks and my teaching background, there has been so much time for discussion, and it excites me how fascinated she is with reading at such an early age.

A cute mini-game is found within the app where you find cats throughout the story. At the end of the book, the story calculates the total number of cats the reader found within the book. Oceanhouse Media does a great job at combining the original text and artwork of Mercer Mayer, yet providing extras, such as touching a picture to hear and see what that picture is of. You also can replay an entire paragraph if interested. The highlighted words feature is great for early readers.

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Just like Oceanhouse Media’s other omBooks, you have the options to “Read to Me” (reader turns the pages, sees the words highlighted as they are read by a professional narrator) “Read it Myself,” (like a book where you turn the pages and read on your own with sound effects in the background,) or “Auto Play” (like a movie especially good for the younger audience.) And now Oceanhouse Media has even added the special feature “Record your own voice” to their omBooks, as another option to listening to the omBooks with the great narrator.

Description:

Little Critter’s sister imagines all the wonderful things she’ll do when she grows up. She envisions being a great ballerina, a courageous fire chief, a world-famous doctor, a winning race car driver and more! Her enthusiasm will inspire young readers to think about what they’d like to be when they grow up!

Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter stories, which address all the major issues of growing up, are perennial favorites of parents and children.

Recommended Ages: 2 – 5

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★ NEW! Record your own voice
★ NEW! Share voice tracks with others that own this app
★ NEW! Page selector
★ NEW! New options for sound effects, hot spots and alerts
★ Three ways to read: “Read to Me,” Read it Myself,” “Auto Play”
★ Picture / Word association — words zoom up and are spoken when pictures are touched
★ Individual words highlight and are read aloud when tapped
★ Find the creature mini-game
★ Professional audio narration
★ Custom background audio for each scene
★ Pages pan & zoom to accentuate the beautiful, original art of Mercer Mayer

Specifications:

Category: Book
Released: March 27, 2013
Version: 2.1
Language: English
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.