Saturday, December 4, 2010

Review: Sesame Street eBooks

eBooks are a relatively new phenomenon. Instead of turning pages the old fashioned way - which I personally prefer for me; I don't own a kindle or a Nook and don't want one - you click on the side of the screen for the next page. I like this option a lot for small children.

It helps them get used to computers in an educational setting, which I love. And did I mention that there are no ripped pages? No "accidental" crayon drawings? Ahhhh....

Sesame Street now offers eBooks with 134 eBooks currently that range from books you need to read to your child to animated ebooks. I was happily surprised to find that there are also a number of ebooks in Spanish - something that I love for Little Miss who is in a Spanish immersion school (10 books).



I like the audiobooks in that they highlight each word as it is said aloud. With Little Miss still working on her reading, this is a great way to help her practice and recognize more words. Given that the audiobooks have the read aloud option or read yourself option, having books that aren't audiobooks seems a shame. Of the 134 books, 77 are "plain" eBooks.

There are also animated ebooks (26) and 2 interactive books. With the animated books, the animation is minimal, but it is enough to bring a smile of delight from a small child. They don't need fancy animations. The interactive ebooks allow children to sort colors (e.g., purple vegetable onto the purple circle) and the like. Having them be simple click once, drag, and click to drop made it easier for small children to use versus the click and drag to drop that I was expecting.

The Sesame Street eBooks feature all the characters that you know and love from Ernie and Bert to Elmo to The Count and more. In fact, several of the ebooks are ones that I own in hard copy - now dogeared and crumbling, of course. It was nice to see some of the familiar books that we know and love, and Little Miss was happy about that.

You can access the full library of these books for $3.99 per month or $39.99 for a full year. Once you've subscribed, you have access to all the books on the site. If you've discovered some favorites, you can easily save them on your bookshelf ot reread whenever you - errr your children - want.

Want to learn more? Like them on Facebook or follow Sesame Street eBooks on Twitter!

In the interest of full disclosure, I received a one month trial to the Sesame Street eBooks site. I received no compensation, and all opinions expressed are my own.

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