After falling off the roof of his doghouse, Alpo enlists his friend Jimmy to help him find “first aid.”
There’s not much in this app that justifies its presence on the iPad—a conventional book coupled with a willing narrator would accomplish almost as much. An airplane slides through the sky and a cow “chews” her cud; it doesn’t get much more exciting than that. Alpo sheds tears and rubs his leg after falling off the doghouse, but it would’ve been nice to see the action when the text says, “Alpo slips and falls to the ground.” Jimmy happens to have a pink baby buggy strapped to the top of his jalopy, which becomes Alpo’s makeshift ambulance. On the way to the zoo to get medical care, Alpo asks several creatures to either “kiss his leg better” or put a plaster on it. Everyone declines except Alma, who has the magic lips that miraculously heal his boo-boo (leaving readers wondering if Alpo is either a shrewd ladykiller or a hypochondriac who craves attention). The best thing about the app is narrator Sean Connelly, who delivers a lively and entertaining reading of the pedestrian text.
With a little more ingenuity, creativity, interactive depth and literary effort, this app could’ve peeked its head over the “average” bar. But as it is, Alpo is still doing the limbo. (iPad storybook app. 3-6)
