Bilingual App Recommendation – A Word’s a Bird/Un Mot est un Oiseau

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birdTitle: A Word’s a Bird/Un Mot est un Oiseau

Witten by Orel Protopopescu

Illustrated by: Jeanne B. de Sainte Marie

Published by Syntonia and Actialuna

Category: Books

Ages: 5+

Themes: children’s poetry, seasons, spring, nature, bilingual

Platform: iPad

Release Date: May 16th, 2013

Price: $ 2.99

Available at: Apple iTunes Store

      Key Features:

  • Mellow narration
  • consult interactive glossaries to understand the words and poetic images
  • touch blooms and birds and boats to watch and listen to the spring scenes unfold before you
Synopsis: A Words A Bird – Spring Flies By In Rhymes is a French/English seasonal poetry app that will appeal to children and adults. Over 100 stunning hand-illustrated watercolors are fused with digital technology to create the charming animation. April, May and June, each have their own short, narrated poem capturing a different aspect of the season, with endearing animation. The natural sounds that abound during the spring months enhance each poem.
Taster:
Une fleur est une demeure                                                                                                       où l’abellie butine.
A bloom’s a room you seek                                                                                                    when you want to sneek a peek…
Why I like this: The concept is wonderful. Poetry for the iPad is rare and this is beautiful rhyming French poetry translated superbly into English (often substituting brilliant internal rhyme) that captures the sights and smells and sounds of spring. Little children will absorb more complex metaphors through the interactivity, which makes this a superb way to share poetry.  The animation is winsome and transports you out in the park and onto the river with insects buzzing, birds tweeting and an idyllic sense of peace.
 
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12 Responses to Bilingual App Recommendation – A Word’s a Bird/Un Mot est un Oiseau

  1. Sounds wonderful! Quelle dommage je n’ai pas un ipad

  2. The watercolor illustration on the cover is really soft and beautiful and engages you immediately. Sounds like an entertaining, educational and lovely app for all ages. Thanks for sharing.

  3. I like the cover! Tres jolie! I love books/apps that can help you learn other languages!

  4. This sounds really great, Joanna. I love the way you do your app reviews. I don’t have an iPad (yet!) and I’m not as clever as Erik at making my Kindle cloud reader work, but one of these days I’m going to try out some real apps and thanks to you I’ll know which ones to try 🙂

  5. Thank you for this wonderful review of our app. I am flattered that you think I wrote the poems in French, then translated them into English, complete with tricky internal rhymes! Actually, it was the other way around… but the French critics seem to think my English versions are translations, too, so you are not alone. It is flattering, too, to have my French translations taken for originals. They are very close, in meaning, to the originals, as all your bilingual readers can attest.

  6. Joanna says:

    Orel, so glad you enjoyed the review and that I am not the only one making that mistake!

  7. Sarah Towle says:

    Agreed! This is a truly beautiful App and appeals to all ages. I just can’t get enough of it. Bring on more seasons!!!

  8. :Donna says:

    This looks like such a beautiful book, Joanna. I don’t do digital so I can’t read it : / I wonder, though, if it would be available in print through the library. Hmmmm….will have to check!

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