Introduction
OnceUponAnApp's Twas the Night Before Halloween is an iPad and iPhone interactive ebook for kids. It tells the tale of children going to bed on the night before Halloween all excited about the next day’s events.
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Good Rewrite of a Classic Story
Twas the Night Before Halloween is a fun rewrite of the classic story 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. It is written to entertain children, and has several objects on each page that your child can tap for added sounds or interaction. There are lots of fun rhyming phrases and the author really does a great job of sticking to the same pace and structure of the original while rewriting it to be spooky and ghoulish. An example of this is that “not a creature was stirring, not even a gnome.”
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I also like that the witch has flying monkeys in the place of where the eight reindeer would be. They have hilarious names too: Smasher!, Lancer!, Booger!, Villain!, Vomit!, Putrid!, Plunder!, and then regular Dylan!. My middle daughter, who is six, found this to be hilarious because she knows a Dylan who, in his teen angst, didn’t like to shower.
Page example
Interactive Items
One of the most fun parts of Twas the Night Before Halloween is the interactive items you can find. When you look for the things on the page, there are noises for noses, the pictures move, the monkeys chatter, and many other fun things. If you find a page particularly interesting, you can send it to your friend via any of the sharing methods you have enabled in your settings. If you have AirDrop enabled, then go for it, as well as iMessage, Facebook, email, and so on.
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You can also select how much background noise you want. There is spooky music playing throughout, so you can turn that off to better hear the story being read. If you want to read the story to your child you can turn both off or just turn off the story. For beginning readers this is great because it gives them a chance to try. If you want to reread a page, there is a button for that too, or if you just need to pause for a minute. What the app does not do is scroll or highlight the words as they are read. You will need to use a pointer for this, as your finger will set off the touch sensor of the device.
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Pros & Cons
Pros
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Free for a limited time and then $1.99
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Lots of sound options
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Lots of sharing options
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Many interactive items on each page
Cons
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No pointer or highlighting on the text while being read to
Interactive games
Final Thoughts
OnceUponAnApp's Twas the Night Before Halloween is a great interactive story for your iPad or iPhone. My girls ages six and two really like this, and their brother who is 11 even sat through it to read it to them. Overall, this is a well-designed app, and I would recommend it to anyone who has kids and loves the Hallowe’en season.