News & Trends: AppWatch

Description/Features: Maybe the author of "When I Grow Up"—comedian, singer/songwriter, parody personality "Weird Al" Yankovic—wanted to become a children's book author with a new interactive book app, in which case, he was successful (though he's just plain-old Al Yankovic on the book's cover). HarperCollins launched in mid June the "When I Grow Up" app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The book is quite heavy on animation, as well as interactive features (using touch, tile and swipe) and games (for example, tilting your iPad to start two snails off on a race, and swiping your finger across the screen to move a razor to shave tarantulas).

Readers can read the text themselves or opt to have it read it to them in Weird Al's voice. They also can enter their own names into the story to become a part of the story.