APP Of The Week- Tales2Go

Tales2Go iPhone App . . . Storytime, Anytime.

Do you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch? Are your kids always asking you to download the latest app? Well, we’ve discovered a great new app that will entertain the whole family. It’s called Tales2Go. Created by a mom and dad, Tales2Go gives you instant access to over 1,100 great kids’ audio books and stories from leading audio publishers (e.g., Scholastic and Recorded Books) and award-winning storytellers (e.g., Bill Harley, Jay O’Callahan, Diane Ferlatte) to stream, unlimited and on-demand to your iPhone (or iTouch/iPad). The service will be made available on other smartphone devices like Blackberry, Palm Pre and Android in the coming months.

The content is wonderful, rich and diverse, ranging from fairytales to folktales to adventure novels and include such classics as Aladdin, Black Beauty and Jungle Book. Plus, Tales2Go has popular kids’ characters and series such as Clifford The Big Red Dog, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, How to Train Your Dragon, and American Girl. The stories range from a couple of minutes to 6 hours, and are appropriate for kids 3 years old to pre-teen.

Let’s say you’ve got a carpool-load of kids, or hockey practice across town, or you’re on a road trip to the beach. Instead of relying on your in-car DVD player the whole time, or spending time, money and effort to download and sync a bunch of story CDs onto your iPod or MP3 player, simply select and play a story on Tales2Go. Moms will find it’s also handy to play stories at breakfast time, during quiet time, getting ready for bed, or waiting at the doctor's office. One mom even said her kids love to listen to a story when they’re in the bathtub every night.

With Tales2Go, suddenly the kids are mesmerized by a fairy tale, myth, fable or adventure story, well-told by a professional narrator. Without them even knowing it, their imaginations are being sparked (i.e. they are building mental pictures of the stories being told – believe it or not, a skill your kids’ teachers want to enhance, and one under attack from too much screen time). Listening to audio stories also builds vocabulary, a love of hearing stories, and ultimately fosters a love of reading.

So here’s the best part. You can try Tales2Go for 30 days for free. Click this handy link to the Tales2Go App in the Apple App store. It’s easy, you can download the app and get started today:

itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tales2go/id343948867?mt=8

After your trial, it’s a $24.99 annual subscription (about $2.00 per month), which is great value in comparison to purchasing or downloading one-off story CDs. Your subscription gives you unlimited access to the library for a full year, and the library grows weekly, and is now over 1,100 titles.

Start listening today!