Excavating the secrets, scandals, and untold stories hiding below the surface of life, and giving voice to the characters who make or made those hiStories happen.
My fellow judges and I were handed a quite varied list of five short-listed titles, including two apps for the very young, Endless Alphabet and Wee You-Things, and two apps for a much older audience, To This Day and Cornelia Funke’s Mirror World.
But we all agreed that the standout app among the five was a gorgeously rendered and extremely intuitive app that is sure to appeal to the whole family, from pre-readers to grandparents, alike.
We therefore proudly offer the 2013 CYBILS Award for the Book App category to Disney Animated by Touch Press, the leader in book app design and production today, IMHO.
Here is the judges’ collective statement:
“Disney Animated brings to life the outstanding animation heritage of Disney Studios through the expertise of Touch Press, one of the most exacting and innovative developers in the app space today. Appealing to the entire family, Disney Animated meets all the criteria we seek in outstanding interactive media. The technical elements are impeccably rendered, the interactive elements are directly linked to the content, and the narrative content is endlessly fascinating. From stills to studies, animated shorts, soundtracks, interviews, and games that illustrate the points being made, you will have trouble putting this app down.
Disney Animated cries out to be revisited again and again, revealing new insights with each reading. Like any good non-fiction book, you can read this app in linear or non-linear fashion. It drives the reader to explore and experiment. Interactive workshops built into the app not only give hands-on explanations of how animation works, they challenge our understanding of physics in a game-like way. The app makes every use of the medium, animating just about everything, even the text! You can pinch, enlarge, move, examine and share just about everything in this app. What better way to discover animation than through animation itself, but powered by the reader!
With Disney Animated, Touch Press models what the digital environment is capable of and what a truly great book app can be.”
— Cybils 2013 Book App Judges
For more information on this year's Cybils honorees, head on over to our official website. There, you will find titles to keep you and your young readers happy and occupied with great content for a long time!
Big thanks to all the many volunteers -- judges, panelists, and organizers -- who made another successful Cybils year possible. And to Mary Ann Scheuer of GreatKidBooks for herding us all to the finish line!
