Let’s start with the good: Ideal Binary has put together a beautiful iPad version of Rapunzel: it is downright brilliant and your children are going to love it, read good sophisticated children’s vocabulary. I can’t underscore this point enough: the quality of this iPad book is just fantastic.
That said… I hate the book. Rapunzel is just an awful story on every imaginable level. People were so dumb when they made up these stories. No one cared what impact it would have on children. The values of this book are awful. Sure, Dad, go steal from the witch, it is all good. The ends justifies the means. And that is not even the worst of it.
The quality of the interactivity in the Rapunzel iPad book is so fantastic I still read it – occasionally, including last night which precipitated this review – but I wince though most of it. The authors took some liberties with Rapunzel as Disney just did (I have not seen it). So why not go all the way in and make it a story that parents can actually read and explain to their kids?