Inside Out: Storybook Deluxe

Inside Out: Storybook Deluxe gallery
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that Inside Out: Storybook Deluxe is a digital ebook of the movie Inside Out. The 26-pages recap the movie from start to finish, inclduing clips from the movie, two games, and options for recording your own narration for each page of the book. The app's Parents Only section includes an option to share your email address with Disney Digital Books and settings to toggle sound, music, and narration and off. It's accessed through a spelled-out number gate, and since many kids using the app will be able to read, they'll also be able to access the parent section. While the price tag is high, there is a lot of content; however, parents may want to carefully gauge their kid's interest before fronting the cash.What kids can learn
The whimsical visual style and inventive story will draw kids in; the games (especially Dream Productions) are good, silly fun.
Activities can build reading fluency and social emotional skills: Kids can move at their own pace and powerfully customize their experience, recording their own voices as they read or importing images and labeling them with appropriate emotions.
While the navigation in the games isn't always flexible or intuitive, it's generally easy to navigate the app's features and find your way. There's also a video tutorial for the games.
What's it about?
INSIDE OUT: STORYBOOK DELUXE is a digital storybook with a range of interactive features. There are three paths through the app: "Read" lets users concentrate on reading the book, "Play" reveals the two built-in games, and "Read and Play" lets kids encounter the games within the context of the story. Within the story, users can read silently, listen to the text as the narrator reads, or record and play back their own narration for each page. After reading, kids can tap and swipe to move key items and characters on screen, play clips from the movie, advance to the next page and collect stickers along the way (like a moustache and a bowler hat) to use as props in the games.
The two games let kids customize their experience and go inside the story. In Memory Spheres, kids select a photo or video from the device's camera roll and then select one of the movie's emotion characters to tint the sphere to a matching color and represent the corresponding emotion. Kids can also tap the whole team to give the image or video a multi-colored border and suggest that this memory involves many emotions. Kids can then add stickers, weather features (like snow or rain), and sounds (they can record their own sound or add theme music that corresponds to each emotion). Users can then save their memory spheres to the app's gallery or export them to the device's camera roll. In Dream Productions, kids can create their own (very silly) dream story. There are three story choices: The Treasure of Dentist Island, Vampire Beach Party, and Kid Astronaut and the Missing Homework. The assistant director calls out prop needs ("a yucky food!") and users drag and drop props into a bin. The dream story then plays out and the selected props appear as Mad Libs-style entries in the story.
Is it any good?
On the surface, Inside Out: Storybook Deluxe is a fun, interactive text for fans of the movie; more deeply, it's a nice tool to extend the movie's central and most powerful message: All emotions are valid and valuable. There aren't a lot of movies out there that focus explicitly on kids learning to name their emotions, and it's powerful that kids can use this app and this story to explore this important social emotional learning skill. There are some nice customization features: Users can record their own narration for each page of the storybook, and the two activities let users be creative. One drawback is that most, but not all, features are read aloud; for example, kids have to be able to read the titles in the Dream Production activity which might make it harder for nonreaders. Another is the price: For parents already shelling out for the movie, the price tag might be prohibitive. Also, be prepared for a long download time and occasional lag between pages as there is a lot of content. For younger kids, this app might be a good way to let them preview the movie before braving the theater, and for older kids it might allow them to build on what they took away from the movie.
Families can talk about...
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Families can talk about emotions, as they are the movie's core theme. Talk about identifying each of the five main emotions featured in this movie: fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and joy. What do each of these emotions feel like? When do you feel each of these emotions? Talk about the word you use to describe emotions and to identify which emotions you're experiencing.
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Talk about how it's okay to feel different emotions, especially sadness. Riley feels so sad that she thinks she has no one to talk to. Help your kids understand that it's always okay to talk to you about their feelings.
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Discuss core memories: What are some of your kid's best memories? Some of the worst?
App details
Devices: | iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad |
Price: | $6.99 |
Pricing structure: | Paid |
Release date: | June 4, 2015 |
Category: | Entertainment |
Topics: | Magic and fantasy, Adventures |
Size: | 76.10 MB |
Publisher: | Disney |
Version: | 1.0 |
Minimum software requirements: | Requires iOS 7.0 or later. |