Picture Book Apps: New Options for Content Creators

As part of the Digital Media track of the June 25th Mid-Year Workshop for the Florida SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators), I’ll be speaking about picture book apps. The other speakers will be editor, publisher, and author Emma Dryden of DrydenBooks, publishing veteran and agent Rubin Pfeffer (East West Literary Agency), animator Curtis Sponsler of AniMill (The Animation Mill), and moderator and author Joyce Sweeney. Below are the notes and links from my presentation.

Illustration was adapted from Look at My Book: How Kids can Write and Illustrate Terrific Books

A quick overview of terminology and the major ereader devices, ebookstores, and formats to discuss which are most suitable for novels vs. illustrated ebooks vs. picture book (PB) apps. Note: for a text-oriented book, convert it into the Kindle format (Amazon) and make sure the ebook has a professional-quality cover. Links to Kindle and other epublishing resources on the digital author blog E is for Book can be found here.

What is a picture book app? A list of the PB apps mentioned:

• Wild about Books by Judy Sierra, illustrated by Marc Brown (Random House)
• Miss Spider’s Tea Party by David Kirk (Callaway)
• Papa Gatto and Cinderella by Ruth Sanderson (PicPocket Books)
• The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce (Moonbot)
• A Present for Milo by Mike Austin (Ruckus)
• Roxie’s A-MAZE-ing Vacation Adventure by Roxie Munro (OCG Studios)
• iDinobook: Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs by Alberto Polo Roldan, illustrations by Carlos Leon
• Bunnyfur Imagines by Jenny B Harris is an in-app purchase from within the free Interactive Touch Book app.

A comparison between a traditional print picture book versus a picture book app: for example, a PB app doesn’t usually have double-page spreads. The size of the iPad “page” is about 5 3/4" X 7 3/4" so it’s a smaller area to work with than the average print picture book.

Typical app actions include Show and Hide... how they might be used in the context of a story? For example, if the story called for flowers to bloom, the Appear action could be used to make that happen. Other actions include Rotate; Bounce; Assemble; Take apart; and Change Color...to name only a few.

Who and what can be interactive? In addition to characters, the flowers, furniture, rugs, buildings, hills, clouds, and even the words themselves can be part of the action. The above PB apps show a great deal of diversity in the amount and the nature of the interactivity.

Some great reasons to make a PB app are:

• as a companion to a print book (related activities such as games)
• to explore a niche market that traditional publishers aren’t interested in
• to reissue an OP title
• to test an idea for a book or series that may later have a print edition
• to create something that would be impossible in any other form

More ideas are in my article on E is for Book.
 
The process of writing and illustrating a PB app is analogous to writing any picture book. The addition of Reader interactions, animations, audio, and other media add complexity and creative opportunities. The interactivity also needs to be designed. A discussion of the process of writing and illustrating a PB app.

What about the tech? Various partnerships with publishers, agents, and/or developers may be possible or the DIY app-maker can code their own or utilize book app-making tools. The following companies have early versions of non-coding DIY tools available or are in the process of creating them:

• Active Reader by Tall Chair
• Composer by Demibooks
• Interactive Touch Books
• Kwik
• Moglue
• Talespring
• TouchyBooks
• uTales

Each company has its own pricing structure, workflow, hardware requirements, and so on. Some are still in private beta so are not yet available. It is early days for DIY book app tools, so there are many issues still being worked out. The following may be helpful in evaluating a DIY book app tool:

• What are the interactive features that can be incorporated into the app (such as Draggable objects the Reader can move; Narration; Animations; and so on)?
• Check out the quality of the resulting app...try out an app made with the system to see how well it operates.
• Hardware and software requirements.
• Workflow- the system may be on your desktop, on your iPad, a plugin to Photoshop, or a web site. How does it require you to put together the images, audio files, animations, interactivity and so on.
• Does it generate an accurate simulation so you can see how your app will operate?
• Ease of use...like most software, there will be a larger or smaller learning curve.
• Look through any documentation (in my experience, not a strong point for most software developers). A given feature may be there, but can you figure out how to implement it?
• How is your app sold... in your own App store account; under the company’s name; via in-app sales; on their web site; etc.

On Thursday, June 30th at 1 pm ET, there will be a free 1-hour webcast about digital book-making tools. It will be presented by author Pete Meyers; his last webcast was excellent so I’m looking forward to this one.

Another interesting type of digital book can be found on web sites such as A Story Before Bed. Adults and/or kids choose a title from the online store and using their own web cam, record themselves reading it. The video plays along with the book; check out the site to see how it works. Click here for an interview with the site’s founder.

E is for Book is a group blog of published children’s book authors writing about their adventures with digital books. There are 70+ articles currently posted, many consisting of first-person accounts of “going digital” with out-of-print as well as original titles.

If you Tweet, there’s a chat about PB apps every Sunday night at 9 PM ET under the tag #storyappchat. The transcript may also be read later in the week on the #storyappchat blog. There often are giveaways of new app titles. My Twitter name is @LoreenLeedy so feel free to send me a tweet.

Digital books offer authors and illustrators amazing new options to explore... I can hardly wait to see how things will evolve.


Updates: 
August 3, 2011
In the list of DIY app tool-makers above, I had originally included Push Pop Press, the developer of Al Gore’s ebook Our Choice. They had announced plans to make their interactive publishing system widely available. As of August 2nd, they have been acquired by Facebook. 

August 4, 2011
Added TouchyBooks to DIY list 

August 26, 2011
Added uTales to DIY list

Loreen Leedy
my web site

IRA 2011 panel discussion: Digital art & more

On Monday, May 9th I’m one of the speakers from 3:00 to 5:45 for the International Reading Association Teachers’ Choices program along with authors Jon Scieszka, and Elizabeth Partridge. The overall topic is Integrating Technology and Reading, so I’ll discuss how I use digital tools to design and illustrate my picture books. These notes and links are for the attendees as well as anyone else who is interested.

Drawing as Fast as Lightning

...as fresh as a daisy

The examples used are from Crazy Like a Fox: A Simile Story and The Shocking Truth about Energy.

Why I use digital tools.

The premise of Crazy Like a Fox is to illustrate the comparison used in the simile. When Rufus the fox is sleeping like a log, he turns into a log.

The art in The Shocking Truth about Energy serves to bring dry facts such as “Energy can change into different forms” to life. For example, LIGHT from the Sun is changed by a tree into wood, which is a FUEL that can be burned, thus changing the energy into HEAT (as shown in an illustration on page 4–5 of the book.)

Analogy: a typewriter is to a word processor as traditional art media is to digital illustration.

My 4 Stages of Technology Adoption:
I hate it.
That’s interesting.
Let me try that.
I can’t live without it!

Would Aaron Copland have used GarageBand?

Early digital art to vector and painting software.

My set-up, hardware and software. Mac Tower; NEC LCD monitor; Wacom tablet; Epson scanner; Sony camera; Epson printer; Photoshop; Illustrator; InDesign.

The basics of brushes, color, and layers in Photoshop. Incorporating traditional media.

From sketch to final art.

Design and layout of pages in InDesign.

The good news and bad news of creating artwork digitally.

Finding image reference:
Historical images from the Library of Congress American Memory collection.
Clipart ETC: Over 60,000 free antique engravings for students and teachers.
Tag Galaxy: A gorgeous animated search of Flickr images.
My blog post about Tag Galaxy.

Sneak peek of my next book, which is ALMOST finished. : )

Here’s a tip about how to get circular images into an iPad Keynote presentation:

Save round or otherwise irregular image with a transparent background in the PNG format.
Email it to yourself.

Open email on iPad, select and Save Image.

Image will appear in Photo app on Camera Roll.
Select image, then Copy.
Paste it into the iPad Keynote app and transparency will be maintained (yay!)

A graphs fan

This letter certainly made my day:

Dear Loreen Leedy,

I love the Book of the Great Graph Contest. I like the Graphs and the “Whose foot is the longest”! I Love the cookies and the Pictures by you too. Here are some Graphs I Liked: Where My Friends Live, and Do You Like Mud?

Love,

Shayna

Isn’t that fun...and so nice that it’s a math book that inspired Shayna’s enthusiasm. I have to say that the bar graph made of cookies is one of my favorites, too. Here is a link to The Great Graph Contest.

Can books play games?

I’ve been enjoying reading a book about video, computer, and alternate reality gaming called Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal. I saw her by chance on a segment of a show that plays with the notion of what is news, The Colbert Report (you have to watch a silly ad first, sorry):

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jane McGonigal
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

There are many concepts she discusses that could be incorporated directly into a book or story app or be a part of the extended world around one (e.g. via an author’s web site). My monthly post on I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids) goes into more detail about it: Playing games with information.

A few of the interactive, gamelike ideas that would be fun to add to my books include: 
Layered images so readers could see under the surface of something
Changing images to show sequence over time (e.g. metamorphosis)
Non-linear paths through a book
Interactive timeline with pop-up elements
Pop-up word definitions
Audio feedback to let readers know they’ve found right answer, etc.


I would love to hear how authors or educators are tapping into the techniques of game design to engage readers, please let me know of any cool ideas.

A Measuring Penny story

Dear Loreen,

Two days ago my husband and I were walking our Boston terrier, Stellaluna, in the Dallas City Park. Dallas is a small town in northern Oregon near Salem.

During this walk a small boy and his mother approached us.  The young boy came right to me and said...“are you the lady who wrote Measuring Penny?”  

I replied “No.” His mother then explained that you had written the book and he was very impressed with it. He thought I might be that lady.

After hearing about the book, I told the young man that I would like to read it. I went to the library the next day and got a copy.  I found your book delightful and educational.  A “Delightful Book”, indeed!

I explained to the little boy that our dog was named Stellaluna and asked if they were familiar with the story Stellaluna. They were.

It was a wonderful experience for us. I thought you might like to know how your book continues to please young people.

Warmest Personal Regards,

Beverly H. Kentch, Kindergarten Teacher (retired)

Post Scriptum:

Notice that Stellaluna's Ears are greater than 1 cotton swab long!!

Isn’t that a charming story and letter? I asked Beverly’s permission to post it here, many thanks to her. She’s right, Stellaluna’s ears are quite magnificent. (In the book, Penny’s ears are measured against a cotton swab). I also must mention that seeing Post Scriptum written out is a rare sight, love it!

How Andy Went to Mars

Today’s post is in celebration of Share a Story ~ Shape a Future week. For more links to similar posts, please visit Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog.







Once upon a time, 
there was a little boy in the 4th grade who had loads of fun at school every day. He loved to sit in the last row of the classroom making his friends giggle and folding paper airplanes. Andy was reading well below grade level, but he thought:

One day his mom gave him four quarters for book club day. On the way to school, he saw a pretzel vendor and bought one. Mmmm…Andy loved pretzels!

After polishing off the salty snack, Andy sat at his desk studying the order form. With 50¢ left, he searched for a book that was cheap enough. A book called Mission to Mars looked okay and cost 49¢, so he ordered it. Then he folded a paper airplane and aimed it at a kid in the front of the room. The boys in the back row giggled as usual.

A week or two later, the brand new book arrived. The story was about a family that moved to a Mars colony (wow!) The two children played hooky from school, snuck outside and got lost, wandered into a cave, and then met some (previously unknown) native Martians!

Andy was amazed at how much fun a book could be and that it could bring a story to life in his mind. When that adventure was over, he had to have more. Books, books, books, he wanted to read more books. After a few months, Andy was reading at 6th grade level. He went on to attend collage, then graduate school, and earned his Ph.D.

Nowadays, Andy is a research scientist whose lab is at the Kennedy Space Center. He investigates a variety of topics in astrobiology, which is: the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. (Quote is from NASA.) He even has a Mars chamber in his lab that simulates the conditions on the Red Planet.

After Andy and I met and eventually married, one topic that often came up was “Why don’t we do a book together?” and “...about what?” One day the obvious solution occurred to us…Andy began downloading incredibly detailed NASA photographs taken on Mars and I started drawing characters to populate the barren landscape. The end result was our picture book Messages from Mars:

The story takes place one hundred years in the future and stars a group of students that get to visit Mars. They explore the historic sites of the Viking, Pathfinder, and Spirit and Opportunity missions, and fly over many of the planet’s spectacular features such as the largest volcano in the solar system and a canyon as long as the United States is wide.

So, because Andy read a book in the 4th grade that captured his imagination, not only did he get to go to Mars, so did I! You never know which book a child will fall in love with so it only makes sense to keep offering kids as many diverse options as there are stars in the sky.

Happy Reading!

A “highly recommended” review (yay!)

My Teacher Is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles and Amazing Facts. Loreen Leedy (Author and Illustrator), Marshall Cavendish, 48pp, $17.99, 2010, ISBN 97807614557084.
 
Gr 3-5–Fascinating facts and entertaining illustrations combine to make this trip through prehistory a fun adventure for all. The author not only includes fun facts about the earth’s formation and its first inhabitants, but also incorporates some of this information in the format of a poem and/or riddle within each spread, making it all the more eye-catching and memorable for young readers. The layouts are artistically appealing, and the placement of the animals and their related facts within each period gives the reader a better understanding of how life forms have evolved. Science teachers and school librarians will want to have this in their collection, not only because of the educational value of the information, but also because of its unique presentation of facts and the graphic illustrations and simple depictions of various life forms through the ages. Teachers can use this to show how poetry can be used across the curriculum. One of the most important features of this book is the inclusion of the fun-factor, but they will also seek it out as a resource for various areas of study.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Library Media Connection 
Jan/Feb 2011

Click for the book’s page on my web site.

Click for a sliding puzzle of an archaeopteryx.