Winken, Blinken and Nod for iPad

WINKEN, BLINKEN AND NOD FOR IPAD marks a great new direction for book apps. Casting you as the narrator and having the scenes change as you read words on the page is a brilliant innovation. And once the process is perfected, we'll probably see some truly superior apps made that way.

This one offers a bit of difficulty, as the software doesn't always seem to catch what you'd said. Sometimes words that are spoken correctly highlight and trigger an animation; other times they just don't light up, as if the mic didn't hear you at all. These misfires don't occur the majority of the time, but if a preschool reader is using the app to test her new skills, she might get frustrated by any glitches. It's certainly worth mentioning, though, that the animation, all of which is done with paper cut-outs, is adorably sweet. The app may have been better served by including a standard "we read to you" mode. But there's no denying that Winken, Blinken and Nod is a very cool new step in the evolution of book apps.