B&E: Water by BnE Media – Review

 Reviewed by Alison

 B& E: Water is a quaint universal storybook featuring two sisters B & E.  The story takes us through the actions that B must take in order to wake her sister up which involve lots of noise, playing inside including coloring, playing outside in the mud puddles and finally a bath and evening downtime.   A bit about the company, BnE Media is based in Australia and was founded by two sisters who began creating children’s storybook apps using original stories with animations.  The animations in the app were unexpected and happened every three to four pages and really helped bring the previous pages to life.  The app features narration, word highlighting, simple navigation and background noises and music.  Be sure to check out the original comics featured on the site as well.

This is a sweet storybook app featuring word highlighting, animation and the use of imagination.  My son loved it when they imagined the sheep jumping over various objects and the girls playing in mud puddles.  We liked how the girls worked together to accomplish a task like getting each other clean in the bathtub and imagining the sheep.  During the animations which occur every few pages something unexpected happens like the water balloon breaking on the wrong girl or falling into a puddle that went all the way up tot the girl’s neck.  The hand drawn illustrations were beautiful and true to the story.  I really liked learning more about the creative process for the book on the BnE media website including the illustration (Colour Boards) and the process of creating the app.

I wish that each page had an animation or piece of interactivity rather than just a sequence after every three or four pages.  Having the ability to bounce the ball and hear it bounce will engage readers and encourage them to interact with the app.  In addition, it would be fun to have a page where the reader could color just like B&E.  My son loved the voices and wondered why they were not the ones reading the story.

This is a sweet app which features no links to social media, ads or in-app purchases or external links.  It is a great story of how sisters can become friends and work together to accomplish a task.  This would be a great app for siblings or for two girls who are best friends to share as well as to promote the value of imagination, friendship and working together.

B&E: Water by BNE MEDIA PTY LTD Category: Books, Education Requirements: Compatible with iPodTouchFifthGen, iPod Touch (3. Gen.), iPad 2 WiFI, iPod Touch (4. Gen.), iPadThirdGen4G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPadFourthGen, iPhone4S, iPadFourthGen4G, iPhone5, iPadMini4G, iPadThirdGen, iPad WiFi, iPad 3G, iPadMini, iPad 2 3G Size: 97.61 MB

$2.99USD

Screenshots

Screenshots for iPad

NOTE: A fee was received to expedite this review to the top of our waiting list but this payment has not influenced the objectivity of the review and all opinions have been offered honestly.

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Alison

Alison, the American iMum is from Illinois. She lives there with her son and husband. In their spare time, they enjoy playing outside, enjoying nature and of course testing apps on their devices. They have a variety of devices including an iPad, iPhone, and an iPod.

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You can email me direct at alison(at)theimums.com