As a child I am sure everyone has read or been read The Tale of Peter Rabbit. If not I do feel sorry for you! It is a great kids story about a misbehaving rabbit. Loud Crow has brought the timeless classic to a new generation in such a brilliant and fun way! The full title of the application is PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit, as the name suggests, it is a pop-out book for the iOS platform. The app, which was developed by Loudcrow Interactive, does seem like a strange concept, but it works very very well.
When you open the application you are greeted with the option of having the story read to you or to read it on your own along with some other info tabs. The tabs are what make up the pop-out feature of the story and the title page is the first glimpse of those. Once you’ve selected whether or not you want the story read aloud or to read it yourself, simply tap on “The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter” book to begin.
The book itself is now loaded and it shows the title page. Looking at the wonderful character art you might notice they seem to stick out a bit or at least have shadows, tap them and you will get different noises related to the characters and situations through the book. I had a good time tapping each of them to the amusement of my girlfriend. I enjoy the cutesy goofy kid things a lot. Once you drag the right page side the story will begin. If you selected to have it read to you a wonderful British female voice will carry you through the story. The art will slightly be animated at times, or have animated pieces falling. You can click on them to pop leaves or blackberries at another point out into the front of the page. Also you may tap each word to have them read aloud again, this is great for kids learning to read for repetition and sounding out. Through the book you’ll be seeing more of the pull tabs from the title page of the application, you can pull them for fun interaction and different sounds that go with the story. Poking and tapping the characters will also give other noises.
I had a blast with this application, anyone from a small child to a 28 year old nerd and up will be able to get some enjoyment from it. The story itself is kind of messed up if you read into it, single mother rabbit with a bunch of kids, one bad, their father made into a pie for trespassing. It is not quite on par with the kiddie safe schlock of the modern era, but that’s the way I like it! Bad bunnies might get turned into pie, good lesson I think! Overall though I cannot suggest this application enough. The level of cutesy rabbit adventure is fantastic, the pop-out portions and noises add to that and kept me engrossed the whole time. I cannot wait to see what comes in the future from Loud Crow and their PopOut! line, they have one devoted 28 year old customer in me and hopefully a lot more people out there. I give this application a rating of 5 out of 5 rabbit pies!