Food allergies need not give you the blues when you’ve got friends like the Bugabees.
Based on a print book of the same title, the app tells the story of eight bug friends, each with individual food allergies, and what can happen when exposed to nutritional no-nos. Cricket is allergic to peanuts. Beetle is allergic to milk. Caterpillar is allergic to wheat. On the list goes, covering the most common food allergies found in children. Brightly colored illustrations create a community of friends at home, school and play. Page by page, the Bugabees flit about with plenty of interactive options, and through an informative quiz at the end of story, readers can learn more about food allergens. Parents will especially love the fruit-and-veggie–consumption support, as well as the affirmation that food allergies need not keep children from having fun. As the rhyme goes, “queasy or itchy or yucky, / it means you’re allergic but also quite lucky” to have good friends and good times together. The rhymed text, unfortunately, is forced and bland, and the repetitive response that each character gives when offered an offending food, while a reinforcement of the rhyme and a good strategy, gets old pretty quickly: “No thank you. It’s okay. I can still have lots of fun without ____ anyway.”
A serviceable if artless resource. (iPad storybook app. 4-6)
