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Kids E-Book Ideas?

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wraith808:
Oh ... I forget how old things are :) 

Infocomw used to be an interactive fiction maker that made purely text adventure games for computers.  They have some classics with some truly great writing and great puzzles mixed into an insanely frustrating but incredibly entertaining and rewarding experience.

Their works include Enchanter, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Wishbringer and of course the series that started everything Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III.  There are several others... my favorites are Wishbringer, Starfall, and Planetfall.

app103:
Mouser created an interactive audio story game engine, way back in NANY 2007, and was quite upset that nobody ever recorded any MP3 stories for it, other than Della's, which was included with the app as a demo.

You could say it's the "audiobook" version of the "choose your own adventure" genre.

Renegade:
Mouser created an interactive audio story game engine, way back in NANY 2007, and was quite upset that nobody ever recorded any MP3 stories for it, other than Della's, which was included with the app as a demo.

You could say it's the "audiobook" version of the "choose your own adventure" genre.
-app103 (September 23, 2012, 02:54 AM)
--- End quote ---

I just checked it out. Looks like a good start, but the authoring seems a bit difficult for some people (needing to get your hands dirty in XML). It would do well to have an actual authoring tool go with it. Yeah, I know. The authoring tool would be a lot more work than the player itself. Been there done that.

But it does seem to be on the right track. Voice recognition would be very cool, and even possible as you'd only need to recognize a very small number of words, e.g. a, b, c, or 1, 2, 3, etc. You wouldn't need one of those horribly expensive services that are web based, slow, and prone to breaking with poor connections, etc. (I've seen some engine that can be stand alone -- forgetting the name right now.)

app103:
Thanks to this post by 40hz, I discovered a treasure trove of free children's ebooks available in your choice of a plethora of formats, including Kindle.

Almost all of them are very old and in the public domain. Some great classics in there, along with a lot I never heard of.

When I was a kid, I loved old books. Give me some ancient reading textbook (at least 3 grades above me) or an antique bird watcher's guide and I'd be much happier than with the newer stuff the other kids were reading. I devoured antique fairytale books and things you can no longer find in most public libraries. I think this site is about as close as you are going to get to reproducing that kind of experience for your children, in ebook form.

And while it is not listed in the Young Readers section, you can start with this one: http://manybooks.net/titles/malothec2769027690-8.html

I remember eye balling that book on the top shelf for months, then finally making the librarian climb a ladder to get it down for me. I had the privilege of being able to take home and read a first edition copy of that book when I was about 9 years old. I loved the book so much.  :-*

Also made the librarian go fetch this one, right after (an earlier book by the same author): http://manybooks.net/titles/malothec2510225102-8.html

Again, I got to take home a first edition copy.  :-*

daddydave:
Thanks for all the suggestions, I will use all of them! I am currently leaning toward a Nook SimpleTouch since it supports both ePub and PDF (Barnes and Noble is selling the $99 one on ebay for $60)

And found this (and assuming most of these are free or cheap on Nook as well):
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/21465.Best_Free_Kindle_Ebooks_for_Children_

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