Thing 12: Books, Books, & More Books

Thing 12 is all about books. I admitted in my last post that I'm not big on reading on my phone or iPad, but I did download three of the apps mentioned in this thing: Wattpad, iStoryBooks, and the YALSA Teen Book Finder.

I figured Wattpad could be good for getting some classics, and also wanted to see if there was much in terms of mysteries (my favorite genre). I liked that it prompted me to select my favorite genres right when I logged in:

I was also pleasantly surprised to find there are some Agatha Christie titles available--I love watching the television and movie adaptations of Poirot and Miss Marple stories, but have only read one of Agatha Christie's books, so I think this will be perfect summer reading fare:

I downloaded iStoryBooks because I am occasionally around small children who seem drawn to my phone like a moth to a flame and thought it could be good to have a few more apps for kids. Usually, I end up showing kids my photos and videos of the dachshunds which seems to keep them entertained for a few minutes, but I do have one app for kids on my phone, a game called Toca House which my friends' daughter loved and wanted to keep playing until she was ushered off to bed. iStoryBooks reminds me a lot of a service my library offers, TumbleBooks, except that I think TumbleBooks requires a constant internet connection. The one thing I'd suggest for iStoryBooks is to add a suggested age level or reading level for each story. I viewed one titled 'Food From the Sun' which I found to be a bit more technical than standard 'storybook' reading level. It was cute, though, and the illustrations and narration were well done:

 

Lastly, I used the YALSA app to find a few new titles to read. It could be a handy app for staff in a teen area to have to help teens find their next book, or for creating displays based on awards or genres: