Nosy Crow's Blog, page 172

We're a Smarta 100 Award Winner - and we need your help!

This morning, as Kate, Ola and Adrian dashed off to the Frankfurt Book Fair, we learnt that we’re a Smarta 100 Award Winner!

The O2 Smarta 100 is an annual celebration of the most resourceful, inspiring and disruptive small businesses in the UK – and we’re one of the winners in the Most Innovative Business category.

And now we need your help!

The overall winner of each category, and the O2 Smarta 100 Business of the Year, is decided by public vote – and you can vote for us here.

We’d be immensely grateful for your vote (and, also, if you would pass this along to anyone who you think might be remotely interested).

The winners of each category (along with the Business of the Year) will be announced at an awards ceremony in November. To have got this far is truly fantastic – now, we just need your help to go a bit further.

VOTE FOR NOSY CROW HERE.

Thank you, in advance, from all of us!

Our October books are out now!

It’s our October publication week! And it’s a special bumper month for us, with all our Christmas books out now. Here’s what you can find in bookshops today – there’s something for everyone.

We’ve published a lovely new board book edition of Just Right for Two, written by Birdie Black and illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw – a lovely story with a perfect Christmas message celebrating the joy of giving. One snowy Christmas Eve, the king buys some soft red cloth to make a cloak for the princess. Little does he know that the left-over cloth will be used to make presents for many more of the kingdom’s inhabitants, right down to the last teeny bit of cloth, which is just right to make a scarf that will protect the smallest mouse from the winter chill. With rhythmical writing and heartwarming, charming illustrations, this is a wonderful Christmas story. Here’s a look inside:



Buy the book online.

Snow Bunny’s Christmas Gift by Rebecca Harry is out now – a brand new tale about the little bunny with a big heart, and the true gift of friendship. Little Snow Bunny loves nothing better than playing with her friends in the wintry forest. Every day holds the promise of adventure for Snow Bunny, Fox, Bear and Mouse. But one particularly cold day, no one wants to play and Snow Bunny is left all alone. Whatever will she do? With a little luck and a LOT of imagination, she makes cosy winter gifts for all her friends, just in time for Christmas Eve. With foil on every page, this is a STUNNING book and a perfect Christmas gift. Here’s a look inside:



Buy the book online.

And we’ve also published a new paperback edition of Snow Bunny’s Christmas Wish, the first warm and fuzzy Christmas Snow Bunny story, with winter baby animals and Christmas cheer galore, and foil on every spread for an extra special something. Here’s a look inside:



Buy the book online.

Toddler Time: Big Book of Christmas by Katie Saunders is out now – a gorgeous compendium of Christmas games, activities, stories and songs will keep excitable toddlers entertained throughout the whole festive period.

Buy the book online.

We’ve published the first paperback edition of Pip and Posy: The Snowy Day by Axel Scheffler – a fantastic winter-y story featuring the toddler friends. It’s a beautiful snowy day and Pip and Posy can’t wait to go out and play. They have all sorts of fun, until they decide to build a snowman, when things start to go a bit pear-shaped. Pip wants a snowRABBIT, but Posy wants a snowMOUSE! An argument erupts and very soon both friends are cold and wet – and very sad. Oh dear! Happily the friends resolve their differences over a cosy craft sessions indoors. Here’s a look inside:



Buy the book online.

The Palomino Pony Wins Through by Olivia Tuffin is out now – the third fantastic volume in this new series of soon-to-be-classic pony books, shot through with action, adventure, and a genuine love of horses. Here’s a look inside:



Buy the book online.

And finally, it’s publication week for Poppy’s Garden – the third fab book in a new series about four friends who want to make the world a better place, from best-selling author Holly Webb. Here’s a look inside:



Buy the book online.

Congratulations to all of this month’s authors and illustrators!

Happy National Poetry Day!

It’s National Poetry Day!

We’ve written before on the subject of how valuable poetry and rhyme are for young children: they help children learn and develop language skills (rhymes are often repetitive, making the words easier to learn), they support social skills (children will naturally learn about taking turns and joining in), they get children ready for school by developing reading skills… and they’re lots of fun!

Which all goes some way towards explaining why such a disproportionate number of the books that we publish are in rhyme. We’ve also written before on the process of writing and publishing rhyming picture books – what makes a brilliant rhyming text, why’re they’re difficult to get right… and why we love them.

And looking back on our almost-four-years of published books, there really are a lot of books in rhyme! Novelty series for very young children and babies like the Noodle books and Bizzy Bear series are GREAT ways of introducing children to books for the first time, with gently rhyming texts, repeating themes, and wonderfully tactile elements like touch-and-feel, tabs, and sliders.

For toddlers, books like Icky Sticky Monster and Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flap books are just BRILLIANT, with hugely appealing artwork, funny rhymes and very popular subjects.

And, of course, we’ve also published a great many rhyming picture books – here’s what you can find in shops today:

Books Always Everywhere, by Jane Blatt and Sarah Massini:



Buy the book online.

Guinea Pig Party, by Holly Surplice:



Buy the book online.

Princess Penelope and the Runaway Kitten, by Alison Murray:



Buy the book online.

The Princess and the Peas, by Caryl Hart and Sarah Warburton:



Buy the book online.

The Princess and the Presents, by Caryl Hart and Sarah Warburton:



Buy the book online.

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam, by Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton:



Buy the book online.

Hubble Bubble, Granny Trouble, by Tracey Corderoy and Joe Berger:



Buy the book online.

Whizz Pop, Granny Stop, by Tracey Corderoy and Joe Berger:



Buy the book online.

Spells-a-Popping, Granny’s Shopping, by Tracey Corderoy and Joe Berger:



Buy the book online.

We’d love to hear your favourite rhyming picture books – do give your suggestions in the comments below!

And if you’d like to stay up to date with all our new picture book releases, you can sign up to our books newsletter here.

Nosy Crow shortlisted for the Young Company of the Year award in the Growing Business Awards

At the eleventh hour (literally: just before midnight) on 19 September, we managed to sneak in our entry for the Growing Business Awards Young Company of the Year Award… and 10 days later, Growing Business announced that we were shortlisted.

As I’ve said, we are HUGELY proud of our industry-specific awards, but there’s something fantastically exciting about representing the publishing industry in more general business awards. So many people outside the industry think that publishing is dead or dying, and it’s great to point out that it isn’t. Children’s publishing is in remarkably good shape, and print in this sector in particular is remarkably resilient. In these awards, we know that we’re up against some remarkably impressive new companies, so it’s pretty daunting and I wouldn’t suggest you rush off to place your bets on us at William Hill, but it’s great to have got this far.

The fly in this ointment is that it turns out that this is the kind of award for which shortlisted candidates have to be interviewed in London. This is pretty scary in itself, but the interviews all take place on the Thursday of next week’s Frankfurt Book Fair. As soon as we knew we were shortlisted, we had to move 12 of my appointments with publishers from around the world to the very few other slots we have available on our action packed schedule (we currently have 138 pre-booked appointments across three days for three of us – some of them booked as long ago as June). Luckily, we’ve managed to make it all work out, so I will be flying back to London on Wednesday evening, and then out again at 11.45am on Thursday morning… in time for a 3.30pm meeting in Frankfurt on the same day. It would be terrific to win this award, of course, but selling books at Frankfurt is what really matters next week.

I wrote about the importance of book fairs to Nosy Crow way back. For several weeks, Frankfurt’s been the most important thing in our collective Nosy Crow heads. On Monday, Ola and I did the Ikea run to buy bookshelves and cabinets for the stand, which are shipped out with our finished copies. And next Monday, there will be a final pick-up of the proofs and the dummies that are steadily accumulating in our meeting room. It is a real thrill each time a parcel arrives in the office: we hope it’ll be proofs of a new book. Will, who usually works from home outside London was caught up in the excitement when gorgeous bound proofs of Box arrived on Monday when he happened to be in: “I’ve never seen a new book arrive before!”

So, wish us luck for the award, but, more importantly, wish us luck for the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Cowgirl has been longlisted for a UKLA Book Award!

Yesterday the longlists for the 2015 UKLA Book Awards were revealed, and were very pleased to see Cowgirl, the debut novel by G. R. Gemin, recognised in the 7-11 category!

The awards seek to celebrate books in which the language is powerful: which offer language rich in layered meanings, imaginative expression and exciting vocabulary. They’re the only awards judged by active classroom teachers and 77 of them have been selected from schools in Nottingham, Derbyshire, Leicester, Coventry and Birmingham – it’s fantastic to see Cowgirl included!

A funny, moving story about communities coming together and finding happy endings in unexpected places, this is an absolutely brilliant debut for 9+ readers, with strong female characters and big-hearted social realism: think Michael Morpurgo meets Jacqueline Wilson.

Here’s a look inside the book:

Buy Cowgirl.

The winners of the awards will be announced next year – congratulations, G. R. Gemin!

It's International Coffee Day... so you can win a Weasels coffee mugs!

As if the internet needed any more of a reason to talk about drinking coffee, today is apparently International Coffee Day, which I’m sure is an entirely legitimate event with a rich, storied history, and in no way made up.

But we’re VERY happy to use the occasion to give away some of our quite splendid Weasels coffee mugs! Fans of Elys Dolan’s HILARIOUS picture book debut will know that coffee features quite prominently in the weasels’ plans for world domination – and with one of these excellent mugs you’ll be fully equipped to enact your own megalomaniac aspirations.

To win a mug, all you need to do is follow @nosycrowbooks on Twitter and send us a tweet with the hashtag #weasels – we’ll pick some winners at the end of the day!

Here’s a look inside Weasels:

Buy the book online.

To enter this competition, you must have a UK postal address.

Good luck!

A defence of story apps after a speaker at The Bookseller Children's Book Conference said that apps interfered with story

I spent yesterday at The Bookseller’s Children’s Conference.

It was a good day. Informative data shared. Interesting people met and re-met. A new prize for YA fiction announced. Tom Bonnick spoke very well in just ten minutes about some of the ways that Nosy Crow uses and reuses content in print and digital form without hesitation, repetition or deviation. And things that were said at the conference reminded me of some important things. Here are just a few of them:

1. We need, as an industry and a company, to think harder and better about representing diversity in children’s books.

2. As an industry, we continue to under-acknowledge the role of illustrators (Axel Scheffler’s name was not mentioned once by any speaker other than Tom, despite many references to The Gruffalo and other bestsellers that he’s contributed so much to).

3. Nosy Crow is different from a corporate children’s publishers in many ways, and we need to continue to make that difference an advantage.

But there were things said that I didn’t entirely agree with. One of them was said by Nicolette Jones, who reviews children’s books for the Sunday Times and is deeply engaged with the world of children’s books. I have massive respect for Nicolette, and see eye-to-eye with her on many things. But I disagree with her about apps.

Nicolette said that she had “reservations” about picture book apps, on the basis that the printed book “does it better”, and went on to say that the “technology of the app interferes with the story”. She worried that “interactivity in apps replaces the space in children’s imagination”, and that “the app doesn’t go through the adult”. She said that the only apps she’d found successful were apps like the Touchpress Warhorse app, and Hot Key’s Maggot Moon app which provided additional material around each book, which, in itself, remains unaffected by the surrounding multimedia or animation material.

I love print books. I love print picture books. Publishing books that work well on the printed paper page is not just key to Nosy Crow’s commercial success but one of the things that excites us every day… and, in fact, Nicolette mentioned Open Very Carefully as a book that was both interactive and used the printed page particularly well. But I also love story book apps. I think that making multimedia, interactive apps that still deliver a narrative successfully is a challenge that Nosy Crow rises to. Apps are not books, and books are not apps. Successful making of story apps requires an understanding that apps are another country, and we should do things differently there.

When we are making apps, we think hard about narrative, as, I hope, blog posts like this one about the differences between writing picture books and apps suggest. In each scene in our story book apps, we deliver the narrative before we enable interactivity, so that the child has that part of the story delivered to them before they can explore the scene further. We try to ensure that interactivity reinforces understanding of character: the extra, non-linear, touch-prompted dialogue between Cinderella’s stepsisters creates a sense of them as different characters in our Cinderella app. One sister is vain, and one is jaded. We try to ensure that interactivity reinforces story: in our Rounds: Franklin Frog app, which is a non-fiction story of the lifecycle of a frog, we have worked hard to ensure that the frogspawn behaves like frogspawn, drifting back into a sticky mass after it’s been disturbed, and that, when the child helps the tadpole to escape its egg, there’s a level of jelly-like resistance which means that the child has to pull at the surface of the egg several times before the tadpole is released.

Of course (and I would say this, wouldn’t I?), we see terrible examples of picture book apps where the multimedia and the interactivity do interrupt the story, and where there are features that are introduced just because the developer can introduce them. I have, for example, seen Three Little Pigs apps in which the straw and stick houses, having been destroyed with some kind of interactive touch, spring back into shape again immediately, so the child can knock them down again. Fun, maybe, but narratively all wrong: the point – the moral – of the story is that those two lazy pigs’ houses are destroyed completely by the wolf’s huffing and puffing, and the child must understand that the resilience of the brick house is what makes the third pig different. In our Three Little Pigs app, needless to say, the first two houses don’t spring back into their former shapes after the reader helps the wolf to destroy them either with a tap, or by huffing and puffing into the microphone. Apps can increase children’s sense of ownership of, and engagement with, the story as they are making the events unfold themselves – or even, in the case of our Little Red Riding Hood app and Jack and the Beanstalk app, themselves influence the direction of the narrative. As this young child said to a teacher in a recent guest blog post, “I like the series Nosy Crow and the apps that they make because they tell you the story and you get to play the story at the same time.”

So I think that it is possible to create apps that deliver stories well and that involve children in new ways in the story… and I think it’s important that we try our hardest as a company to make sure that apps that do just that.

Because…

First, however lovely it would be to think that there are, throughout the world, and certainly up and down the United Kingdom, young children who can, any time they want to, clamber up into an adult’s lap and share a picture book with them, I don’t think that’s how life is. I think that story book apps with audio that a child can trigger may increase children’s access to text-based stories: when an adult is busy (working, cooking, with another child), the child can still listen to a story at their own pace. And I think that interactive “hot spots” may encourage children to explore the detail of illustration more carefully than they might in a print book. Besides, I really don’t see why adults shouldn’t share apps with their children in just the same way that they share print books with them. Anecdotally, from our social media and other contact with parents, that’s just what the parents who read picture books to their children but also have access to iPads do.

Second, there are children for whom interactivity and multimedia are invaluable supports to the pleasure they get from story. A good example of such a child would be Ines, who is seven and who has Down’s Syndrome, and whose mother wrote this blog post for us earlier this week about the apps, including Nosy Crow story apps, that Ines loves. There’s a picture of Ines at the top of the post, really engrossed in our Little Red Riding Hood app. Ines’s mother has tweeted to say, “Ines now enjoys sharing the real books of the stories that the Nosy Crow apps have introduced her to. For her, the apps have been a bridge.” (The use of “real” in that tweet is telling, though…)

And, third, even if we’re not talking about children for whom multimedia and interactivity might be a particular welcome support, the truth is that children are spending more and more time in front of screens, many of them touchscreens. Various speakers at the conference today spoke about the hugely increased access to touchscreens. Alison York from Nickelodeon shared their research which suggested that 51% of 3 to 15 year-olds in the UK now have a tablet at home – a percentage that has doubled since 2012. If children are spending a lot of time with touch-screen devices, I think that we should want reading to be part of the entertainment they find there. And I think that, if they find reading there, it has to compete effectively with other things they find in the same place – TV, games and social media. I think that children, especially young children, don’t differentiate between different kinds of media that they find on the touchscreen. They expect interactivity and multimedia from any media they find there. So my heart sinks when I see young children presented with a standard ebook (or a poorly thought-through app) on a touch screen: in my experience, they tap, with increasingly disconsolate randomness, at anything and everything, before giving up. I have said it before, and I will say it again: I do not think reading should be the most boring (i.e. least competitive with other media) that children can do on a touchscreen.

Bev Humphrey, who’s a literacy and technology consultant and an ex-school librarian, spoke today about children and young people increasingly using screens for reading outside school, and preferring screen to paper. She also spoke about schools recognising ebooks an incentive to draw children, particularly reluctant readers, into reading. I think that there is a generation of children that we have to serve well with imaginative and compelling digital reading experiences that use the features of the devices in children’s hands in the same way that creators from other media backgrounds do. I can absolutely imagine a scenario in which mass literacy is just a historical blip; something that started in in the 19th century and lasted until the middle of the 21st. Technology could easily make the ability to decode text irrelevant. I think that would be a terrible thing. I want to give children the incentive to learn to decode text. I think we can do that best by making sure that we use technology to engage children with reading in every way that we can.

I disagreed with something another speaker said too, but I’ll leave that for next week’s post…

Just a few more days to apply for jobs in the Nosy Crow design department

There are only a few more days to apply for vacancies in our design department – the closing date for applications is September 28.

We are using our success over our first three-and-a-half years of trading to grow fast. We are increasing the number of books we publish and branching out into new areas. We are keen to find the best people to join our design team. We have two roles to fill, and we could fill them in different ways, depending on the abilities and experience of the individuals who catch our eye.

We’re looking for design talent at Senior Designer, Designer or Junior Designer level: we want to find the right individuals and we are flexible about their level of experience. We need creative, technically skilled people with experience of designing children’s full-colour books, whether picture books, novelty or trade non-fiction and of working closely with illustrators.

These are full-time roles and the successful applicant will be based in the London office of Nosy Crow in Borough (near London Bridge, Borough and Southwark tube stations, and 15 minutes’ walk from Waterloo).

Candidates will have the right to live and work in the UK and will have an absolute minimum of one year’s experience (but more is very, very welcome, and essential if you want one of the more senior roles) in graphic design, mostly, if not exclusively, in children’s publishing, and will have worked on picture books, novelty titles or trade non-fiction if not a combination of more than one of them. Proficiency in Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator programmes, excellent proven book design and typographic skills, and an understanding and love of children’s books and children’s book illustration are essential. We’re also looking for good written and spoken communication skills, and the ability to work efficiently to a deadline.

The successful candidates will manage illustrated book projects from initial layouts all the way through to production, supporting the illustrator or the author/illustrator throughout the creative process. The designer will report to the Head of Design but will work closely with other members of the Nosy Crow team, particularly the editorial staff, to produce child-focused, parent-friendly, high-quality books.

We are still a small, close team here at The Crow’s Nest working in a friendly, highly creative and professional environment and we need team players who are willing to muck in, particularly during busy times.

If you would like to apply for a role, please send a CV and application letter, along with digital samples of your design work, to Stephanie Amster via email (stephanie@nosycrow.com).

The closing date for applications is 28 September 2014 at midnight (UK time).

Win copies of our October books!

Nosy Crow’s new October books are almost in shops, and so it’s time for our monthly books giveaway! If you’re a resident of the UK or Ireland, you can win any of our upcoming titles simply by subscribing to our Books Newsletter and sending us an email with the book you’d like to win. It’s an extra special month, filled with all of our Christmas books – here’s what’s up for grabs…

There’s a lovely new board book edition of Just Right for Two, written by (ahem) Birdie Black and illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw, out next month – a lovely story with a perfect Christmas message celebrating the joy of giving, with rhythmical writing and heartwarming, charming illustrations. Here’s a look inside:

It’s publication month for Snow Bunny’s Christmas Gift, by Rebecca Harry – a brand new tale about the little bunny with a big heart, and the true gift of friendship.

And we’re also publishing a new paperback edition of Snow Bunny’s Christmas, the first warm and fuzzy Christmas Snow Bunny story, with winter baby animals and Christmas cheer galore, and foil on every spread for an extra special something. Here’s a look inside:

Emma Dodd’s Wish… and Happy… are both out next month – with flurries of foil throughout, and featuring tenderly-told rhyming texts and heartwarming illustrations exploring the loving relationship between animal parents and their babies, these beautifully designed, padded picture books are sure to become firm bedtime favourites.

Toddler Time: Big Book of Christmas by Katie Saunders is available to win – a gorgeous compendium of Christmas games, activities, stories and songs will keep excitable toddlers entertained throughout the whole festive period.

We’ll be publishing the first paperback edition of Pip and Posy: The Snowy Day by Axel Scheffler – a fantastic snowy story featuring the toddler friends. Here’s a look inside:

You can win The Palomino Pony Wins Through by Olivia Tuffin – the third fantastic volume in this new series of soon-to-be-classic pony books, shot through with action, adventure, and a genuine love of horses. Here’s a look inside:

And finally, Poppy’s Garden is up for grabs – the third fab book in a new series about four friends who want to make the world a better place, from best-selling author Holly Webb. Here’s a look inside:

To win any of these books, all you have to do is subscribe to our books newsletter (if you’ve already subscribed you’re still eligible for this competition) and send an email to tom@nosycrow.com with “Newsletter competition” in the subject heading and the title of the book you’d like to win in the body of your email. So have a good think about which book you’d like to win (we can only accept one entry per person), and good luck – we’ll pick the winners at random next week.

Great apps for children with Down's Syndrome

Today’s guest blog is by Ines, a child with Down’s Syndrome whose mum, Carolyn, contacted us on Twitter to let us know how much Ines was enjoying our apps (you can see her above, playing with our Little Red Riding Hood app). Ines has kindly shared a list of some of her favourite apps with us – here they are.

Hi. My name is Ines. I am 7 years old. I have Down’s Syndrome.

I find most things in life funny. I am only really sad when I am ill.

I can say a few words like ‘happy’, ‘bubbles’ and ‘dance’. I use Makaton™ signs to help you understand me.

My favourite two things are disco dancing and my iPad. My iPad was given to me by the lovely people at the Matthew Russo Foundation. Mummy met them on Twitter.

I love to film myself and my family using my iPad. I have taken thousands of brilliant pictures and videos.

I want to share my favourite iPad apps with you:

Temple Run and Subway Surfers: My family watch in amazement as I can get miles along in these games. Something about the dodging and running comes easily to me. When I finally fall off or get run over I think it’s hilarious. Then I just start over again. My top score on Temple Run is 3,496. That’s even better than my older brother.

Toca Hair Salon: This was my first Toca app and it’s so funny. You make hair styles for people. I like to shave all their hair off and then put pink extensions on!

Toca Band: All the Toca apps are brilliant but Toca Band is my favourite. You choose different sounds and put them together to make music. Some of the sounds are really funny and the music always sounds good no matter what you pick.

Other great Toca apps are Toca Kitchen Monsters, Toca Robot Lab, Toca House and Helicopter Taxi.

Talking Tom Cat: There are lots of apps that talk back to you but Talking Tom is my favourite because I love cats. He is great for getting me to practice my words. I can shout noises at him and he shouts them back! But mostly I like cleaning his teeth and putting him on the potty. He unwinds the loo roll for ever, just like I do.

Moto X Mayhem: I like to zoom the man along on his motorbike, then when he falls off you can pick his body up and throw it around. It’s brilliant but Daddy says it makes him feel sick.

Endless Alphabet: This is great. You have to fit the letters into the words. That sounds boring but it’s not. The words wiggle and squeak, then they cheer when you get it right and walk off the page! The words are a bit difficult for me, but that doesn’t bother me.

Nosy Crow: By far my favourite iPad apps are the Nosy Crow animated fairy tales. And I’m not just saying that because this is their blog – I’ve been their biggest fan since they started. I play the best bits over and over again:

Little Red Riding Hood: I love putting the food in and out of the basket and shouting BASKET. I also love it when the wolf chases Red Riding Hood around the table. I can do this bit for hours, although it makes me laugh so much sometimes that it’s hard to sit up. The mini-games are great too.

The Three Little Pigs: PIGS is a great word to shout. I like helping them to build their houses. When they run away from the wolf I get very excited and jump up and down. Then he gets his bottom burned on the cooker! Ha ha, serves him right.

Cinderella: A real favourite (‘ELLA). I love helping Cindereralla put away all the things in the kitchen. There is lots of magic in this story, like when the pumpkin turns into a coach. But the best bit is the Prince and Cinderella disco-dancing at the ball.

Jack and the Beanstalk: BEANSTALK is a great word. Me and Mummy made a beanstalk out of green paper and real leaves and put it on the wall. The giant’s castle has lots of rooms to explore. You can help the cook stir the soup or play the piano. But by far the best bit is the attic. You help shoo the bats out and I shout BATS! every time and collapse with laughing. I can shoo the bats out for a very long time. Until my brother can’t stand my happiness any longer.

I like doing other things too, like swimming, or bouncing on the trampoline, but my mum and dad won’t let me play with the iPad while doing those. That’s a shame as I think that would be the best thing ever.

So that’s me. You can follow my mum on Twitter @cookyh. Let her know of any new apps I might like. It might give my family a change. And never stop dancing!

Thank you so much for sharing your favourite apps with us, Ines! If you know of other apps that are great for children with special needs, please do share them below in the comments or on Twitter.