Maggie Tales Occupies Fidgety Kids Starting This Holiday Season

By: Family News

Every parent has been there, especially during the holiday travel and shopping season. Panic sets in as your children grow impatient and restless. You’re waiting at the airport or standing in the checkout line; you ask your kids to be quiet and to stop misbehaving, but that works for approximately 3.8 seconds before the fidgeting resumes.

Maggie Tales offers a solution. Before heading out, parents and kids can download children’s picture books to their mobile device. Every book in the Maggie Tales library is available in a variety of formats for everything from a PDA to an iPod® to a Sony PSP®. While the books’ images “play”, a professional narrator reads the text on each page and is accompanied by custom music scores designed exclusively for each book.

Maggie Tales currently offers books for ages 2 to 8 years old on its website or as sponsored podcasts at the iTunes Store, www.iTunes.com. Each book is available to download for free, and is also available in streaming format on the website, www.MaggieTales.com, for viewing on a computer or Xbox 360®.

For the lucky little ones this holiday season, an iPod can be preloaded with a few Maggie Tales podcasts.

“I started to think about how to improve upon more passive forms of children’s entertainment, and transform that concept into a more meaningful learning experience for kids that takes advantage of existing mobile technology,” says Mark Smith, founder and CEO of Maggie Tales. “I set out to create something that would both enthrall kids and offer a guiltless solution for parents.”

Maggie Tales was born.

“Our books, which we call ‘Storytimes’, can be downloaded to many mobile devices, like iPods, iPhones and more traditional cell phones, and taken just about anywhere,” says Mark. “With Storytimes pre-loaded on the mobile device you use most often, you give yourself the opportunity to pleasantly occupy your children at the airport, in the mall, at the doctor’s office, in coffee shops – anywhere!”

On the Maggie Tales website, parents will also find quick links to purchase a favorite Maggie Tales Storytime™ in its print book version. Maggie Tales is currently available for free through its various sponsors, whose subtle PBS-style ads targeting parents and adults are shown before each Storytime. The company plans to offer sponsor-free Storytimes for a small fee of $1.99 per download in the near future.

About Maggie Tales

Idea Stream Productions LLC creates Maggie Tales, portable digital stories based on existing children’s picture books for kids ages 2 and up. The company believes in providing both parents and kids a wholesome, mobile learning experience that is available instantly or can be taken just about anywhere. Maggie Tales’ Editorial Review Board™ considers existing in-print and out-of-print children’s picture books, and combines narration, original music, page turn tones and page turn animations to create Storytimes. Maggie Tales are developed and produced by early reading specialists, professional narrators and composers, video editors, recording engineers and graphic designers.