A sweet storybook app featuring word highlighting, animation and the use of imagination.

B& E: Water is a quaint universal storybook featuring two sisters B & E. The story takes us through the actions that B must take in order to wake her sister up which involve lots of noise, playing inside including coloring, playing outside in the mud puddles and finally a bath and evening downtime.  A bit about the company, B&E Media is based in Australia and was founded by two sisters who began creating children’s storybook apps using original stories with animations. The animations in the app were unexpected and happened every three to four pages and really helped bring the previous pages to life. The app features narration, word highlighting, simple navigation and background noises and music. Be sure to check out the original comics featured on the site as well.

This is a sweet storybook app featuring word highlighting, animation and the use of imagination. My son loved it when they imagined the sheep jumping over various objects and the girls playing in mud puddles. We liked how the girls worked together to accomplish a task like getting each other clean in the bathtub and imagining the sheep. During the animations which occur every few pages something unexpected happens like the water balloon breaking on the wrong girl or falling into a puddle that went all the way up tot the girl’s neck. The hand drawn illustrations were beautiful and true to the story. I really liked learning more about the creative process for the book on the BnE media website including the illustration (Colour Boards) and the process of creating the app.

I wish that each page had an animation or piece of interactivity rather than just a sequence after every three or four pages.  Having the ability to bounce the ball and hear it bounce will engage readers and encourage them to interact with the app.  In addition, it would be fun to have a page where the reader could color just like B&E. My son loved the voices and wondered why they were not the ones reading the story.

What we love…

The animation in the app when B drops a water balloon while she tries to wake her sister; word highlighting

What we’d love to see…

Sounds to go along with the activities and animation for the bouncing of the basketball or the clomping of the boots as B stomped

Summary

It is a great story of how sisters can become friends and work together to accomplish a task. This would be a great app for siblings or for two girls who are best friends to share as well as to promote the value of imagination, friendship and working together.

This is a sweet app which features no links to social media, ads or in-app purchases or external links. It is a great story of how sisters can become friends and work together to accomplish a task. This would be a great app for siblings or for two girls who are best friends to share as well as to promote the value of imagination, friendship and working together.

This review was originally published by TheiMum.com on October 6th, 2012.

The iMums – Amanda, Alison, Mary and Grace – are four mothers from different parts of the world dedicated to educating parents about the best digital stories, educational apps, fun games and technology products available for their children. Founded in August 2011, the four iMums have 11 kids among them ranging in age from 1 to 17 and bring a global perspective to their app reviews with the original iMum Amanda being from Australia, Alison is in America, Grace is from Singapore and Mary is from the UK but is currently living in America. At less than a year old, the Australian-based blog already boasts hundreds of reviews on family friendly iOS and MacOS apps and products

All reviews are of the app, not the platform/device. Based originally on iPad versions. Minor technical details may vary.