For anyone thinking about downloading this app, it is a collection of books, one of which is free (the Christmas tale). As interactive stories go, it's okay. I'd say for a freebie it's pretty good, EXCEPT that there are ads on every page. Not only is it distracting, but I'm concerned that my 3-year old will accidentally sign me up for a credit card. I'm more concerned that he'll throw a screaming fit when he touches the ad and the story disappears for a webpage of a sponsor. In my experience I've not encountered ads in a free children's app. As for the quality of the writing, there are grammatical errors that are easy to spot, and a real clinker that has Santa riding his "sledge" across the night sky....I kid you not, it actually says "sledge." And lest you think it's only a typo, the narrator actually reads "sledge" out loud in a very proper English accent! Hilarious! If this is the quality I can expect from the other stories, there's no way I am buying any of them. And, because of the ads on every page of the free sample book, I'm deleting this app."Lady bug's bookshelf" is a similar app, but the free book is ad-free, and the other stories are charming and well written.

This app was very good when it was a free app. Now the developers have changed the way the app functions. For those of you with older children, it's not so much a problem, but for those of us with 2 year olds, it has made it problematic to use. I don't mind the developers wanting to make some money, I would gladly pay for the app in it's previous incarnation, but now when you open the app, it presents you with a intro of characters while it loads up it's new library bookshelf-life store interface. Once that opens, you need to touch the book that you want to read amongst all the others that are for sale (it is at the top of the bookshelf). This isn't very helpful for small children who tend to touch many places on the screen. I'm sure in time he would learn, but I've downgraded the app back to the previous version in order to avoid this new change. Also, if your child accidentally touches the home button and you return to the story, you need to start all over from the beginning load up screen. Not a very good update at all.

I am an English teacher for toddlers. I used this book every day in my lessons around Christmas time last year and the kids loved it! I was very pleased with this app. I would have gladly paid for it, but it was free! I recommended it to my fellow teachers and those with iPhones or iPads downloaded it and used it in their classes as well. This morning I updated this app (two new pages they advertised - Yay!) and when I turned it on there was a long intro with other books to buy, which will surely waste time every time I open this app in my lesson. Worse than that, there is a big fat advertisement bar right in the middle at the bottom of the screen! I can't remove it, and it says I have to pay for the ad-free option. This irritates me, but as I said I like the app so I will gladly pay for the ad-free version... except that when I click on the bar to pay for the upgrade, the app crashes EVERY TIME. You have turned an awesome app into a dud. Shame on you. For those of you using the old version, DON'T UPDATE!!!

OK, so this app is free, and you have to give it high marks on that point. It has the basic graphics and interactions I like to see in a lot of books. For instance the christmas present on the first page starts to swing back and forth when you tilt your iPad Most of the interactions are canned, so you can click on a spot and some sort of interaction happens. Unfortunately, most of them are just a single behavior and not really interactive - but hey again this is free.As an adult I think the book is pretty good. The reason for my 3 rating instead of a 4 is that my kids really show no interest in this book at all. Given a choice they would choose many other books.

I got this app back in November and at that time the story was free. Which was why I got this app in the first place. I enjoy Christmas and like to read stories to my kids. But now you have to pay for the story. That's so wrong. It's the same story they had before but now it's $1.99. If I had known that it wasn't free anymore than I wouldn't have gotten the app. I don't mind paying for apps but to take away a full story that was free last month is just wrong and greedy.

I purchased the .99 cent version of this book so that it won't display ads. My special needs son is really into books on the iPad lately. Well now every time he clicks on this book to read it, it brings up all of the other books this app developer sells and gives you the option to buy those too. What a waste! My son does not know how to navigate through the crap and ads to get to the app that we actually paid for. I'm ticked and I'd like the developer to fix this! Waste of money.