Earthday 2010

The Lorax. Celebrating Earth day, Oceanhouse Media has released the Lorax. Illustrations are panned in and out of the book. Read to me, Read to myself, and Autoplay. Text font is very small but readable. Text is highlighted as read. Read aloud is a storyteller voice. The Onceler voice should have been much more crusty and cranky. Light sound effects. Animation is words and sound appearing when objects or text are touched. This is their usual handling of Seuss books. I would like to see Oceanhouse pushing the envelope. Well done as far as it goes, but not remarkable. Expensive. Published by Oceanhouse Media. $3.99. (aa)

Lorax Garden. Not sure what they were going for here. It's a flower growing garden game. Few instructions and it's not intuitive. Water the garden, watch the flower grow, and pull out the weeds. I had high hopes for this game. It should be a fun app, but it is not. I suspect the game is supposed to go along with the reading of the Lorax, but very young children usually don't get the Lorax. The game is designed with very little to do. The idea is good, but just not done well. It feels like they tried to hurry the production of the game to be out with the release of the ipad and missed the mark. Published by Oceanhouse Media. $2.99. (BB)