Reviews in this column first appeared in SLJ’s column Touch and Go. Please note that later versions of some of these titles may now be available. Visit Touch and Go at slj.com under “Blogs & Columns” for additional reviews, commentary, and interviews with people in the field.–Daryl Grabarek

Atlas by Collins. Harper Collins Publishers. 2012. iOS, requires 5.0 or later. Version 1.0.3. $6.99.
Gr 6 Up–This expansive app contains seven globes: satellite, physical, political, population, environment, communications, and energy. For each thematic section text and illustrations combine to provide an overview of the subject.

“Living Earth” explores the natural world and a variety of landscapes, as well as changes in and threats to the planet, among other topics. “People and Power” considers where energy reserves are located, where energy is produced and consumed, how technology connects the world, and more. These and other subjects are addressed through questions and detailed answers are provided along with captioned photos, charts, and graphs (sources cited).

Viewers swipe to spin the 3-D globes; pinch and pull to zoom in and out. While zooming in the globe will switch to Google Maps with an Internet connection. A location bar at the top of each screen marks the city and country or region displayed. A tap on the information symbol opens a window that reveals country statistics and information on the nation’s land, climate, economy, demographics, and transportation, and a few images. Each entry also includes links to the country’s web site.

Menus below each globe provide readers with additional facts about our planet including birth rates, pollution hotspots, and Internet usage. Color-coded keys and symbols help readers interpret the information. (The app contains no narration or sound effects.)

The satellite globe is the only one that downloads when users purchase the app. The others must be installed individually, and the amount of time required to do so is considerable. While the breadth of information inAtlas is impressive, its tendency to shut down and the substantial amount of storage space required (1.3 GB) may prove problematic for some users.–Cathy Potter, Falmouth Elementary School, Falmouth, ME

Franklin Frog. Barry Tranter and Emma Tranter. Nosy Crow Ltd. 2012. iOS, requires 3.1.3 or later. Version 1.0.2. $4.99.
PreS-Gr 2–Hibernation is on the mind of an amphibian in this interactive, animated introduction to the habits and life cycle of a frog. Users meet the mature fellow resting on a lily pad. From there they direct him through his habitat and day as he hops to land, snares a tasty snail and worm, and swims in a pond, carefully avoiding predators. As the seasons change, the frog hibernates (viewers help locate a likely spot), awakens in the spring, and eventually finds a mate. From one of the eggs laid by the female, a frogspawn hatches and the story begins anew. With its simple activities and circular format, this colorful app is bound to keep young children engaged through several frog generations.

Children can read the story independently or listen to a winning child narrator. There are occasional verbal and visual (glowing dots, blinking arrows) prompts. The background music is soothing and the sounds of pond life, realistic. A delightful balance between educational and entertaining.– Amy Shepherd, St. Anne’s Episcopal School, Middletown, DE

Goodnight Moon. Margaret Wise Brown. Loud Crow Interactive. 2012. iOS, requires 4.3 or later. Version 1.1. $4.99; Android, requires 2.3.3 and Up. Version 1.2. $2.99
PreS-K–On the opening screen Brown’s classic title appears against pastel bed covers, a plush stuffed rabbit, and some not-too-subtle advertising for add-on purchases. A tap to the jacket and the book opens as the background becomes a deep-blue sky filled with twinkling stars. A double-page spread of the story covers only half the screen, so images and text are somewhat reduced in size.

The digital version retains the rich palette of Clement Hurd’s original illustrations, and there are loads of enchanting animations, sound effects, and interactive elements: flickering flames in the bedroom fireplace, a cow that jumps over the moon, stars that dissolve on touch, and the opportunity to inscribe the book with child’s name and/or photo. But there are also features and games that may not be intuitive, or of interest to kids: a mouse hunt, a sticker collection (more for purchase), and a spy glass that enlarges only a small portion of an image or the text while obscuring the rest of it.

The narration is evenly paced and soothing, and a gentle piano tune plays throughout (the volume is adjustable). To advance the text, a long swipe is best; a short one may trigger more interactivity, which can frustrate children.

Parents are likely to be turned off by the add-ons (though the pitch can be locked down), but kids who love this story will enjoy viewing it with animation. While the interactivity will engage them, the extras are just that.–Daryl Grabarek, School Library Journal

Photo by Pixland

The Global Education Conference, held around the clock November 12–16, offered a wide range of sessions by and for educators worldwide. A highlight: “Apps Galore: Top Tools for Global Collaboration (iPad),” in which teachers Ruth Metka, Fran Siracusa, and Jennifer Williams at Country Day School in Largo, FL, recommended apps for school use. The educators incorporated these apps as a part of a Flat Classroom Project—a student-centered, multimodal learning environment—during which their school connected with schools in China, Turkey, and Minnesota.

The trio emphasized that the best way to successfully use apps with young children is to pair a virtual activity with a concrete one. For example, their students mailed painted handprints to other schools, but also used apps to create a videos, maps and presentations to send electronically.

The Tripline app lets kids share animated maps to show and narrate their (virtual) travels by pinning pictures, and adding background music or recordings to the map. Combine with any basic weather app to really let kids feel their destination.

For a really fun video-making experience, they suggested the Puppet Pals app. Kids cut out a picture of themselves using a finger on the iPad, then digitally manipulate the puppet on a background of their choice to create scenes. Try taking pictures of your school, then letting puppet-students give a tour.

The Country Day School teachers recommend two educationally-focused social networking apps with Web 2.0 components, which they felt encouraged participation, offered good teacher control, and were generally safe for classroom use. Neither tool requires kids to have an email address to register. The Edmodo app allows teachers to create groups (for example, for same-age classes at schools in different locations). Schoology is a lot like Edmodo, and kids like it because the interface is  similar to Facebook.

Nearpod gives teachers control over the pacing of presentations viewed on the iPad. Slides appear on students’ devices simultaneously, and multimedia and interactive elements keep kids from getting bored with their synchronized viewing experience.

Don’t forget that sometimes the most familiar apps are the most effective, they advised. Skype is a wonderfully versatile tool for connecting live. Just be sure you make clear rules about who gets to talk when — maybe pass around a special “talking stick.” And if you do carry out a global project in your school, be sure to blog about it.

Globaledcon sessions are archived online and can be viewed at anytime—check out presentations on themes ranging from “Expand online professional development for educators with mobile learning” to “The Connected Middle School Student: Fostering Global Collaborations through International Projects.” Presentations on language learning and environmental issues are especially well-represented.

What did people discuss during all this socializing? One topic: How reading, by nature a solitary occupation, can also be a social one. Educational technology consultant Linda W. Braun’s Saturday morning session, “Social Reading: Inside the Ebook Book Discussions,” examined the ways that talking about books creates connection among readers. And while sharing one’s enthusiasm on social reading site Goodreads is terrific, those exchanges happen outside the book.

Enter social reading within Ereaders. Typically, reading an Ebook allows for highlights, note-taking, and sharing on Twitter and Facebook from within the book. Braun showed her audience iPad apps that take social reading a few steps further. First, she introduced two book apps—Wonders of the Universe by Brian Cox (a 3-D tour of the universe, which Braun sees as the future of nonfiction) and Cupcakes! (an app for creating virtual cupcakes; the future of cookbooks).

Braun then introduced two free reading apps—Inkling (allows for purchasing a chapter of a book at a time, the creation of reading groups, and private or public notes) and Kno (a textbook app that provides detailed sharing options perfect for study groups).

David Levithan speaks at the YALSA Lit Symposium in St. Louis. Photo by Emily Goodknight.

But the bulk of the discussion focused on the Subtext app. Subtext allows for the creation of groups, the easy purchase of one title for a group of readers, the side-loading of EPUB titles onto the app (including original student work, for example) and extensive sharing features. It is not only possible to highlight and add notes to the original text, the reader can also tag those notes, mark notes as spoilers, keep notes private, or turn off the notes feature altogether. Every attendee of the session left with a code granting access to a free copy of Steve Hamilton’s (Alex Award-winning) novel The Lock Artist (Minotaur Books, 2010) and the ability to join a reading group to begin November 10th.

This opens up myriad possibilities for both classroom and literature circles. Using Subtext, teachers and librarians can be right in the story with teen readers. Teachers are able to insert questions within the text and implement a setting that cloaks other student replies until the reader has posted themselves. An in-the-book discussion could level the playing field for students who are slow processors. They could read at their own pace at home, taking their time answering questions within the text, yet still feel part of the discussion.

There’s great potential for book club discussions as well. Book club members unable to attend their meetings could still participate in the discussion within the book. Other uses? Prepping for author visits, sharing creative writing projects, peer editing, sharing alternative endings–the list goes on. In sum, Subtext allows librarians to be part of the reading experience. It’s all about building relationships with teen patrons.

On Saturday afternoon, Rollie Welch, collections manager at the Cleveland Public Library, led the session “Classic Literature vs.21st Century Novels: Survival of the Fittest.” The purpose was to share ideas for persuading adults who work with teens to move beyond assigning or recommending classics that rarely appeal to teen readers.

Earlier this year, at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, Welch led a pre-conference session in which the attendees chose the one book that every teen should be assigned to read in 2057. In other words, what contemporary YA books will survive as a classic? (At that session, it came down to a tie between Laurie Anderson’s Speak (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999) and Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief (Picador, 2005)).

The YA Lit Symposium session really got rolling when Welch shared 15 theme areas. For each area, he began with a classic novel typically assigned in school, then offered a contemporary novel and a nonfiction title on the same theme. Audience members had a wonderful time recommending alternatives and applauding their favorites. For example, for the theme of “Young Soldiers at War,” rather than assigning The Red Badge of Courage, why not try Craig Crist-Evans’s Amaryllis (Candlewick, 2003) or Evan Wright’s Generation Kill (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004)? In the Mystery category, rather than The Hound of the Baskervilles, consider Rick Yancey’s The Monstrumologist (S&S, 2010), or Richard Jones’s Jack the Ripper: The Casebook (Andre Deutsch, 2009). Rather than Robert Lipsyte’s The Contender (Harper & Row, 1967), try Paul Volponi’s Black and White (Viking, 2005) or Brian Shields’s The WWE Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to World Wrestling Entertainment (DK, 2009).

Welch believes that at least three on his list of classics will still be read and enjoyed by today’s teens–The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Even so, he offered Printz Award winner, Ship Breaker (Little, Brown 2010) by Paolo Bacigalupi as an alternative to the latter in the category of “Hero’s Journey of Self Discovery.”

The YA Lit Symposium is held every other year. The 2014 conference will be held in Austin, TX, over the Halloween weekend.

Angela Carstensen is Head Librarian and an Upper School Librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City. She also blogs at Adult Books 4 Teens. Angela served on the Alex Awards committee for four years, chairing the 2008 committee, and chaired the first YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adult committee in 2009. Recently, she edited Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation (ALA Editions, 2011). Contact her via Twitter @AngeReads.