Parents' Guide to Baby Einstein: Storytime

Bright cutesy graphics, simple sentences, and restyled classical music combine for high kid appeal, but most potential for meaningful interaction depends on reinforcement offscreen. Baby Einstein: Storytime touches on topics like animals, water play, or the farm. And getting kids engaged with language and reading is certainly a good thing. But most of these stories aren't exactly great kids' classics. In addition, interactive elements often have nothing to do with the story. So, instead of strengthening learning, they can end up distracting kids from paying attention to the text. The pulsating circles inviting kids to jab at the screen make the potential for distraction even bigger. Sure it's nice to encourage your kids to listen to classical music, but it's also just as easy to play some in the background while you go about your day. Finally, the sticker menu in the create mode may end up confusing kids rather than enabling them to create. That said, parents could use the stories to spark meaningful interaction and conversation with their kids, which would really enhance the app's value. On its own though, Baby Einstein: Storytime isn't the worst option for toddlers, but it also isn't the best.