Bizzy Bear Builds a House is a charming universal interactive storybook application – second in a series of Bizzy Bear apps based on the popular boards of the same name by the developers at Nosy Crow.

Two modes are included in this fun, colorful application. The first is “Read and Play,” which includes narration as well as extra lines of dialogue – both voiced and including text that is triggered when a reader taps on a character to hear him speak. A blue orb reminds children of this capacity to hear the extra dialogue – always a nice touch which draws children’s attention, taking care that none of these charming moments are missed. New to this series is the use of highlighting when a word is spoken to further aid young readers in their ability to follow along – now in the other Nosy Crow apps as well.

The second mode of this app is “Read by Myself,” which allows children to read this story to themselves without narration, including extra conversational moments between characters. It is a really nice touch that one can choose any of three lengths of time that the text is left on the screen, allowing parents to choose the correct pacing of this story to their child’s reading ability.

My son enjoys Bizzy Bear, a relatable character we followed along with to a trip on a farm within the first story. Here, Bizzy Bear helps out friendly animal construction workers build a house – very impressive for my son, who loves to play construction himself.

My son indeed finds the ability to help Bizzy Bear work on this construction site exciting, working on such tasks as digging a hole or driving a dump truck, although he did have to figure out how to manipulate the vehicles he controls within this story.

Other favorite moments for me are the pages where one gets to meet the entire work crew building a house, as one can tap around the page to see and hear different jobs being performed such as a monkey sawing wood, a dog laying down bricks or a rabbit using a screwdriver in a scene that to me is reminiscent of Richard Scarry’s Busy Town.

I also enjoy the details found within, such as the rhythm created when the worker animals all work together on their different activities, or how one can empty the pallet of bricks after helping a worker donkey repeatedly fill up his wheel barrow, encouraging players to fully play out these scenes before moving on to the next page.

It is also quite nice that the accidental turning of these pages is minimized because before the interactive moments are worked on by the player, the page turning arrows are low-lighted and a touch is needed to wake them up to allow page turning with a following tap.

All in all, a lovely experience has been created yet again in the world inhabited by Bizzy Bear. My son and I hope to see more of these stories to come as well as more interactive storybooks in general by the developers at Nosy Crow.

Animals, Art, By Age Range, By App Feature, Just For Fun, Language, Preschool, Primary School, Reading, Reviews, Social, Stories, Toddlers