If you’ve seen Wreck-It Ralph, chances are you loved Wreck-It Ralph.  The movie has enough heart, charm, and video game goodness to keep you coming back for more.  Sadly, the Blu-ray won’t be available for a few months, but until then you can revisit the film thanks to Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph Storybook Deluxe and Hero’s Duty Interactive Comic, both available for iOS.

Wreck-It Ralph Storybook Deluxe

As with previous Disney interactive storybooks, the book portion of the Wreck-It Ralph Storybook Deluxe app is essentially a retelling of the movie’s plot.  Aimed at a younger audience, the storybook features narration, animation, and artwork that is top notch.  Whenever a character actually has dialog, the actor that played the part provides the voice, making for an authentic retelling of the story.
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I’m jealous of kids today. I mean, I’m a kid at heart and I have no qualms spending my time watching cartoons, buying toys, and blogging about said cartoons and toys, but to be a kid right now in the age of iPads and Angry Birds and actual Avengers movies would be pretty awesome. I got bored with storybooks pretty quickly when I was little, and I’m sure flipping through the app equivalent of a storybook on an iPad would have kept my attention at least a little bit longer.

Like the Spider-man origin story app Rob reviewed a few months ago, Disney and Marvel have released two Avengers storybooks on iOS devices to coincide with the movie, and they were kind enough to send me some download codes so I could take a look. Avengers Origins: Assemble! and Avengers Origins: Hulk are both available for the iPhone and iPad.

Avengers Origins: Assemble

The awkwardly named Avengers Origins: Assemble! gives kids one version of how the Avengers all got together. It focuses on Captain America getting frozen in the ice and the Avengers finding him a few decades later. The line-up used in this story contains Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, and Wasp, and the threat is non other than Namor himself. I’ve never understood Namor very much (read: casual comics fan), and this app actually taught me something.

Stan Lee narrates both of these stories and it’s great hearing him read. His voice is as iconic as his face, moustache, and sunglasses, and hearing him read about his heroes is a blast. I’m not sure if kids appreciate an old man narrating their stories as much as older geeks, but I’d like to think they don’t mind.

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Like any new technology, the field of e-books for kids is still experiencing growing pains. In recent history there have been a few exceptional examples of e-books done right, most notably with the classic The Monster at the End of this Book starring the loveable, cute, and furry Grover, as well as this year’s exceptional, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Now Marvel Comics has gotten into the game with the release of The Amazing Spider-Man: An Origin Story, currently available for the iPhone and iPad for $6.99. Can the House of Ideas keep up with Sesame Street and Charlie Brown? Let’s take a look.
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To me, it never really feels like Christmas until I’ve watched ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, the 1965 special that introduced us to the animated world of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. Well, this year you can experience the classic in a whole new way, thanks to Loud Crow Interactive’s new app, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

The app, which is available for iOS as well as Android (but shines on the iPad) re-imagines the animated special as an interactive storybook. Scenes from the cartoon are rendered as beautiful illustrations complete with narration by Chuck himself, Peter Robbins. Besides reading through the story, you can play the piano, decorate your own pathetic Christmas tree, finger paint, and be assured that a few bucks can at least buy a few minutes worth of holiday nostalgic goodness.
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Why carry a boring old flash drive around when you could be carrying a super awesome Batman-shaped flash drive? If you don’t have one in your utility belt don’t fret, because the fine folks at Mimoco have sent us one to give away to one of our readers. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post before Friday, December 2nd, 2011 at 6pm EST and I’ll randomly pick a winner.
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