The Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

This is an ebook, a kiddy ebook... with lots of animation and action. The guy responsible for this is William Joyce, supposed to be one of those people doing those animated movie stuff at Pixar; he's an award winning illustrator FYI. Who doesn't know Pixar, right?

Anyway, I read about this new supposed to blur the lines between picture books and animated movie app more than a month back. A check at the App Store showed this to have been put there in May. I usually resist buying kiddy books but for this one, my curiousity really got to me and I told Other Half that I was going to purchase the book.... my first kiddy book purchase from the App Store @ USD$4.99.

And was it good?? The first page was quite impressive. Notice the ghost like hand pointing to the book? Throughout the app, such kind of 'ghostie' help would appear to prod and prompt user to try certain things, like move put your finger on the screen and turn round and round to make the house disappear into the eye of the tornado.

So, what do I think of this book? One word! Impressive! I enjoyed the book too. Not only were the graphics and animation awesome... they made use of iPad's features like the gyroscopic thingy and of course the touch pad. But the icing was The Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is actually a nice story... one of those stories that actually tugs at your heart string.

Kids (and me!) are kept entertained through various 'activities'. And some of them are actually fun. And the colours are vivid, facial expression of the main character, Mr. Lessmore, rather cute too.

Did I enjoy the book? Oh yes! Perhaps I should rephrase it this way. I enjoyed the experience of reading the book. It's always nice to have a nice story, add that to animation, snippets of music here and there to create the mood, and a nice ending... Ah! That's what fairy tales are supposed to be.... it gives one a warm fuzzy and happy feeling.

And what do I think? Yup! Change is on the way. The way we read will definitely be seeing changes in the next couple of years! Paper will probably be out! The digital way is probably here to stay. There will be those who will insist on the good ole paper books that you can hold and flip the pages but this one is probably here to stay. All the senses are put to work in reading... would that be over stimulating? I don't think so. Would kids love this? That would a be a resounding YES!! And is the the USD$4.99 worth it? I think so too... it's at times like this that I wish my MYR is 'bigger'; better purchasing power.

I was just telling my students this morning that in this short lifetime of mine, I've seen how the computers evolve from those days with the green monochrome monitor to the laptop, smartphone and now tablet computing (skip a few steps)... and it's been awesome! But then again, the person who lived through the Industrial Revolution also will say the same of the progress that he witnessed.

I wonder whether I can sneak this in (play the cheat mode) and claim this as read number 23! LOL! For those with kids, this book is definitely worth the buy, for the experience as well as the story. After all, Pixar's signature can be found in its very essence! My gal enjoyed it tremendously too!

BTW, you need an iPad for this to work.... 8)