The Noisy Book GAMES is a creative and fun application that allows children to discover the sounds found among objects in their world – some common, some interesting choices for an application such as this. It is also good to know that French as well as English languages are provided, a thoughtful inclusion especially for French speaking, bilingual and other families looking to expose children to languages other than their own.

Parents who have perused iTunes will be aware of the abundance of apps such as this geared toward teaching new sounds, be it animal, vehicle or the like. What makes The Noisy Book GAMES stand out in a crowd is that the included noises are all created with the use of a human voice, not samples from nature or devised electronically, creating whimsical sounds adults will enjoy as much as their children will.

The main section of this app is the book itself, consisting of multiple pages one can scroll through, each containing six illustrations one can tap on to hear narration read in order to explain the object or concept being explored. Listen to these sound effects and enjoy the animated illustration as well, such as “The bee goes ZZZZZZZ…” or “The watch goes tick tock…” but for me, the most interesting selections are those more obtuse, such as the choices of “Pain” or the electrical socket going “no.”

The cute animation included further brings these words to life with nice effect, and I enjoy that these images have the same hand-crafted quality that these voiced sound effects do, keeping this app lovingly low-tech.

One also has the option of reading this book to oneself, recreating the sounds found throughout or coming up with one’s own unique noises.

I appreciate how the different sounds found within are randomly displayed among these pages and that one can flip though pages of this book looking for a specific sound, but I don’t like how after a sound is explored, it is grayed-out and can no longer be selected – an issue for children who may want to come back to a favorite sound over and over again.

After one has enjoyed the sounds found throughout this app, do test one’s memory of these noises as a game. “One, Two, Three sounds” is also included.

The look of this game is similar to a page from the book, consisting of six images. A sound is then heard, challenging players to select the corresponding sound.

This game has a nice level of difficulty, as one needs to remember a lot of sounds, and these answers are not always obvious. I do not like, however, that one mistake ends the game, never allowing children to know what the correct sound was that they were hearing. I would much rather see this as an activity which allows children to simply try again, showing children the correct answer after a few wrong choices, as well as letting players move on to the next question.

A memory game is also included where players turn cards over in order to make pairs – nice touches include choosing between easy and hard difficulty, as well as these cards turning over as quickly as the players can flip them – good to know as the slowness of having to wait for the cards within memory style games is a common complaint.

The last section this app offers is called Noisy Rap, a sound board based on the same layout found in the book and quiz sections. Here one can tap on an image to hear the sound it makes, together with background music also playing. These new songs can be recorded, and it is nice that a demo song is included to hear what can be created with a little practice. This section, as the name of this app implies, is rather noisy and will be a hit or miss depending on what the player finds appealing to listen to, but as a single section, I don’t see this as a major flaw within this app as the book and quiz modes are quirky and fun.

I have enjoyed the various sounds the human voice can make within this app, but I do think the price set for this app is expensive compared to their other apps at this price point, something to think about.

Animals, Art, By Age Range, By App Feature, Just For Fun, Language, Music, Primary School, Puzzle, Reading, Reviews, Sounds, Toddlers