eBook Reviews: Christmas eBooks from Oceanhouse Media

Oceanhouse Media continues to expand its eBook library with some fun holiday titles: How The Grinch Stole Christmas!, The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Tacky's Christmas. I reviewed the Apple versions of the apps for the iPad and iPhone.

The apps all include many interactive features and ways to enjoy the stories:

"Read to Me" — A narrator reads the story, with each word highlighted as they go along. A tap of the finger will cause the words associated with illustrations to pop up, such as "Grinch," "Santa," "snow," "trees," and "nose."

"Read it Myself" — Children can choose to read the story at their own pace. There is still the option to turn the pages and highlight words by tapping on the pictures.

"Auto Play" — The narrator reads the story, pages flipping automatically. Again, children can tap the pictures to see highlighted words.

Each story uses the interactive features in its own way, with appropriate sound effects and animations.

In How The Grinch Stole Christmas! Dr, Seuss offers his own Grinchy take on the night before Christmas. His wonderful illustrations, with black and white and red as the primary palette, come to life in this ebook, but the words are the thing, with classic rhymes such as:

Then the last thing he took
Was the log for their fire!
Then he went up the chimney himself, the old liar.
On their walls he left nothing but hooks and some wire.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.

The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree, based on the book by Stan & Jan Berenstain
with Mike Berenstain, seems like it may have been inspired by Seuss's Grinch, as Papa Bear learns the true meaning of Christmas in his quest for the perfect Christmas tree. It has some big vocabulary words, like "magnificent," "Nativity,"collection," and "festoons," so parents may want to be on hand, or choose to read the story to younger children. The illustrations are bright and colorful, and there are snowy animations to add to the fun.

Article Author: xoxoxoe

My name is Elizabeth Periale. I am an artist, blogger, and culture critic. I write about movies, books, television, pop culture—old and new—with a feminine/feminist perspective.

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