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A Great Find-Digital and Interactive Book Apps For Kids

2010
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Every now and again you come across a really cool and innovative product that you just want to share with everyone. Especially ones that have your children enthralled in great books at a very reasonable price.  That’s how I feel about these apps for kids.

Ruckus Media Group, launched by Rick Richter, former president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, has positioned itself as a global family entertainment company specializing in Digital and Interactive Book Apps for kids and features some of the most inspired talent of our time narrating and musically accompanying such classic tales as The Velveteen Rabbit, Tom Thumb and the Knights of the Round Table and John Henry. At just $3.99 per download, these apps are very affordable for all the cool features they offer.

Among one of the first apps to be released by Ruckus Media is my favorite classic tale, The Velveteen Rabbit. Narrated by Meryl Streep and featuring the music of George Winston, this heartwarming tale is sure to become a story that children love to hear and interact with for a very long time. I had the pleasure of downloading this wonderful book onto my iPhone and letting my youngest daughter read it aloud from the back seat of the car while I was driving. It was soon confiscated by my 3 year old son who has perfected the finger swipe and turned the pages with ease. These apps are distinctive in that not only is there wonderful narration, but you can read the stories on your own or even record your own voice reading the story making sure you are never too far away from your children and can still read them their bedtime stories. With these apps, the stories come alive for the children who are turning the pages, touching the words and drawings, and hearing the readers voices.

Look at this adorable screenshot from The Velveteen Rabbit- 

I was also able to ask Mr. Richter some questions about Ruckus Media Group and these groundbreaking apps.

The press has been overwhelmingly positive for this venture. It seems to fill a niche that has not been satisfied with the standard book readers. What makes these apps unique?

What makes our apps unique is we are using top notch talent including authors, celebrities and illustrators and merging them with great content. Our orientation is to make each app the best we can make. People have figured that out in the way we have presented ourselves in our initial launch.

What devices are they are available for?

Right now they’re available for the iPad and iPod Touch, and they’ll be available for Android devices in the near future.

There is quite a roster of talent reading the books! Do you have a favorite voice and a favorite title that will be released?

It’s like picking a favorite among children. There are some wonderful performances and each stands on its own merit.

Do you have any plans to expand the library to include Middle grade and YA titles?

Yes, we absolutely do. The same kind of quality we bring to ages 3-10 now is what you can expect that we will bring to older children. We want to do it away in a way that forms a story. We have some exciting projects under contract that you’ll hear about soon.

While the apps are competitively priced at just $3.99 with free upgrades, will you also be considering any free apps (such as a “Lite” version with less interactivity) so that consumers can try the app before committing to purchasing?

Great question. Right now our free apps are on a promotional basis, rather than on a permanent basis, but we are looking for input from parents and viewers on that and are considering all our options.

Will you be expanding to offer companion licensed products that would complement the apps?

Its’ hard to know where this is all going, but we listen to our customers. We hope that they suggest directions and we’ll take their lead. Parents are valuable in providing direction.

These are the first five apps released by Ruckus Media Group:

To celebrate the launch of these wonderful tales, Ruckus Media Group has generously offered to giveaway ALL FIVE APPS to one Sensible Cents reader! So head on over there and enter to win!

Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this post. I received one download of The Velveteen Rabbit to review. Ruckus Media Group is providing promo codes for the 5 apps listed in the post to be given away to one Sensible Cents reader.

Filed Under: GiveAways & Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Fall is Officially Here

2010
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With Falls arrival, I yearn for the crisp outdoors and all the activites you can do now that the summer heat has been banished from the land. The vibrant colors of  trees and the nip in the air reminds me to pull out my favorite sweaters and some warm fleeces. The open toed shoes get tucked away and the hiking boots come out.

One of my most favorite Fall activities is going apple picking. I love taking a bite of that first apple freshly plucked from the tree, the crunch and the tart juice on your hands as you wander the orchards in search of the perfect apples to pick. It is wonderful that they let you eat as many apples as you want while you pick.  But don’t eat too many- you should save room for the Cider donughts.

 This year, we headed up to Warwick, NY, about a two hour drive from our home.  There were several places to choose from, but we found ourselves arriving at Maskers Orchards. We had heard that going early was best as every orchard gets packed with the NYers escaping the city. They were right! We arrived at 10am and there was plenty of parking and it was rather empty. But not for long! By 1pm when we were finished, it was a mob scene and we were happy to leave.

We picked from a variety of Jonagolds, Red Delicious and Empire apples. For just $24.95 per 1/2 bushel bag you can pick anywhere from 20-25lbs of apples in just one bag. Which, by the way, is a TON of apples. Certainly enough to make several pies, crisps and tarte tartins with enough left over for apple butter or apple sauce. You may still have enough to give away to family and friends after all of that. Yes, it’s that many apples!

Maskers has many activites for families such as pony rides, a haunted house, a small petting zoo, face painting, a small corn maze, live music and pumpkin picking (not in a field). They also have a quaint country store where you can purchase containers of jellies, salsa, honey, and maple syrup.

You can purchase their cider donuts from the food stand, but hold off, because they don’t make them fresh every morning, but rather the night before. They are more like heavy, cakey, sugar donuts than cider donuts. For real cider donuts, you should head over to Soons Orchards in New Hampton, NY. Their doughnuts are golden brown and dusted with a combination of sugar and cinnamon and are extremely light and airy. The pale, golden-apple-colored interior is incredibly moist and packed with apple flavor. Exactly what you want a cider doughnut to be! We had purchased our doughnuts at Maskers, but sadly disappointed, we went in search of a better doughnut and found Soon’s at a farmers market in downtown Warwick. How lucky we were! So we bought another half dozen and those became the grown up’s doughnuts and the Maskers became the kid’s doughnuts. I am mean like that.

After the farmers market, we ate lunch in downtown Warwick. It’s a very cute  town with lots of little shops and places to grab a bite. It’s also very close to the Sugarloaf Art & Craft Village, a crafts community with artistic items like paintings, stained glass, photography, pottery, antiques, jewelry and woodworks, candles, soap, sculpture and much much more! That’s a trip for another day. Today, we also had hiking on our minds.

Satiated from all the apples and doughnuts and a bit of real food, we headed over to Bear Mountain State Park to hike around the lake. For the month of October, the park celebrates Oktoberfest every weekend with vendor booths and a lot of food and beer. While this does seem to draw a rather young and boisterous crowd, they are pretty well behaved and once you are on the trails, you can’t even hear the music anymore.  So, you still get that outdoorsy feel in a beautiful setting (that is far better than any backyard!)

We had a lot of fun just going around the lake and the kids climbed up all the rocks and rolled down the hills. It exhausted them thouroughly! Some day soon we hope to go back and take some marked trails like we did long before children were born, but we think we have to find some milder ones without too much danger and butt sliding. We’ll save the hard trails for when the little guy is older! Of course, by then, who knows if we will be able to handle them anymore ourselves!

So, if you have a day free, head outside and enjoy the cool air and some leaves crunching beneath your shoes, before it gets too cold and the snow begins to fall. Because that’s when I head inside and under the covers to hibernate for the winter!

Filed Under: Family, Les Enfants, Life Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Two of My Fall Favorites

2009
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Hi! It’s been a really busy few weeks, but I am back and will hopefully begin posting regularly again. The holidays are over and I have just finished the last thing covered in tinfoil from my fridge. I got a sunburn every time I opened the door from the glare of the lights on all that foil. I had A LOT of food left over! We did eat pretty much all of it, and I was able to freeze some too. But it is nice to have space in my fridge again.

I pretty much think I shouldn’t eat again until Thanksgiving. Maybe not even then. Unless there is pumpkin pie involved. Or pecan. And maybe stuffing.

Last time I posted, I promised some quick and easy, and very yummy recipes. There are some things I just love to eat all Fall and Winter long. Like Stew. And Soup. But sometimes a turkey breast or a roasted chicken is good too. These two sides go really well with them. And they are very Fall and Winter themed. You just feel cozy eating them. And since it’s about to snow here and it’s freezing out, I think it’s time to bake and heat up the kitchen!

Corn Pudding

2 Cans of Corn; 1 Creamed Style and 1 Regular (Drained)
¼ Cup Sugar
½ Cup (1 Stick) Margarine, melted
3 Eggs
½ Cup Flour
1 Tsp. Baking Powder
¾ Cup Milk, (or if you are making it Kosher to go with meat, use Soy Milk or Non-Dairy Creamer)
¼ Cup Water
1 Tsp. Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix everything. Pour into a lightly greased (Pam) 9×13 baking dish. Bake uncovered 1 ½ hours.

Cranberry Apple Pie
I use this as a side with poultry, but you can serve it warm with vanilla ice cream and it’s just as good then too!

1 Cup Quaker Oats
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 Stick Margarine, softened
½ Cup Brown Sugar
Combine ingredients till crumbly. Pat ½ of this mixture into a pie plate. Reserve the other half.

3-4 Apples, skinned and diced
Dash or so of Cinnamon
1 can Whole Cranberry Sauce

Mix this together and add to the pie pan. Cover with the remaining crumb mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees around 30-40 minutes until the apples are tender.

Enjoy!

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