Mr. Sandman is an interesting interactive book for iPad with a wonderful sense of style and visually quite stunning as the use of bright, vibrant colors on the backlight screen are quite striking – a main focal point of this bedtime story about a boy who is afraid of the dark who goes on a journey with an owl, dealing with this fear.

From the opening title page where one can use a finger to brush the sand off the cover of a vintage book needing to also be unlocked, the sense of style is quite engaging as is the original musical sound track found throughout this storybook.

It is worth noting that English as well as French languages are included with more to come, and this app also includes the chance to silence the narration to read this book quietly to oneself.

In this interactive tale, I admire these developers’ sense of willpower not to inundate these pages with random hotspots – instead including thoughtful interactions such as the music box – a single hotspot to interact with as the boy in this story drifts off to sleep. The music one played is captivating, almost creepy, and I mean this in a good way. I also found utterly charming the interactions one can make with the stars in the sky, each said to have its own personality – details I truly enjoy.

I would love to see, however, more hints on how to find these hotspots as they are often hidden so well that I am at a loss as to how to continue, even at times having problems turning the pages of this book and having to rely on the menu of pages to continue forward.

A woman’s voice narrated some hints to this book, but more of these clues need to be added for the interacting of this book to go more smoothly, maybe with a option of having these hotspots interactions on the page or of including a menu of these triggers to insure that none are missed when reading this visually spectacular storybook.

Even with this issue, I can recommend The Sandman as the lack of hints within these interactive pages is a technical concern that can be addressed, but this level of visual quality makes this app stand out from a sea of others found within the iTunes store.

I hope more hints for these interesting interactions can be added soon, and I have also noticed that this app, even on the new iPad, does not look quite HD – an issue that children will not notice but did catch my eye.

Having made these notes, I am eager to see what new apps the developers at hocusbooksus may produce in the future as their musical elements and visual choices are top notch in every way.

Art, By Age Range, By App Feature, Creativity, Preschool, Primary School, Reading, Reviews, Stories, Toddlers