Fireboy and Watergirl is a series of five free collaborative/cooperative online 2d platformer games.
One player uses the WAD keys to move Watergirl and the other uses the arrow keys to move Fireboy. Watergirl can’t touch fire and Fireboy can’t touch water. They have to help each other unlock doors in order to collect the gems and reach the doors at the end of each level.
Who is it for
Anyone who likes puzzle games would enjoy these games, adults as well as kids as young as 5 or so. A child can play by themself but it’s more fun to have a teammate.
What Kids Like
My kids like the idea of multiplayer games, although I’m reluctant to let them do much with that yet. And we sometimes play “hot seat” games where we hand the iPad back and forth to take turns, but this kind of game that requires sitting side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder is novel to them and is much more intense, and thus that much more satisfying when a level is completed.
What Parents Like
I love that there are games where everyone can win or lose together instead of always being a zero-sum situation where one child has to lose. Collaborative games force situations where the kids have to work together and communicate effectively – not just criticizing for a bad move, but encouraging and helping when possible.
Concerns/Flaws
The games were originally created with Flash, which is very near being completely unsupported. You can still activate the Flash plugin in your browser but it’s a bit cumbersome to do so. Fortunately, some fans have made HTML5 versions of the game, which run anywhere, even on iOS devices (which didn’t support Flash at all). However, these versions tend to be on sketchy sites with loads and loads of ads. And I’m not sure whether these copies of the games provide any income to the initial developers
Who Made it
The games were made by Oslo Albet and Jan Villanueva and have since been adapted with new levels made by fans of the original.
Knights Club is a series of “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style comic books, in which the reader decides the order in which they read. On each page, they may be given a choice about where to go next. E.g. “To follow the merchant, go to page 93. To explore the forest, go to page 15.”
Some pages also include puzzles, the solutions of which are other page numbers. The puzzles are essentially “locks” that must be opened before proceeding.
This middle-grade graphic novel series makes YOU the valiant hero of a fantasy quest—pick your panel, find items, gain abilities, solve puzzles, and play through new storylines again and again!
Magic, adventure, and triumphant battles await you in this graphic novel that plays just like a role-playing game. Choose to play as one of three brothers eager to join the Royal Order of Knights, and keep track of your hit points, abilities, and inventory on a handy adventure tracker sheet—then set off on your quest! The road to knighthood is a long one: you will journey through snowy mountains, haunted lakes, and dark forests in search of the bracelets of bravery, facing down trolls, wizards, and fellow warriors along the way. You will solve riddles, discover hidden compartments, learn combat techniques, and gather magical objects. With the analog fun of a tabletop game and the classic elements of a fantasy video game, you’ll pick your own paths and forge your own knighthood in this irresistible comic book that you can play again and again.
Who is it for
These are for kids who like puzzles and interactive stories. Some of the puzzles are a bit tricky so younger kids would be frustrated by them.
The theme is of medieval swords-and-shields so kids who like Lord of the Rings or “Knights in Shining Armor” kinds of stories might enjoy it.
What Kids Like
The graphics are fun and the story is silly but engaging. Kids today have no memory of the original Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books from the ’80s, so this is a novelty they probably haven’t seen before. Mine hadn’t.
What Parents Like
I like that the books is as engaging as a videogame, but can be taken in the care, to a restaurant, etc. And unlike many videogames, the solutions to all problems come from thinking it through, not from violence.
The Knights Club books are made by Novy, Shuky, Waltch
Novy is a comics author, letterer, and an illustrator living in France. Shuky is the founder of Makaka Editions, a comics and graphic novel publisher in France. He is an illustrator and the author of nine interactive comics as well as several traditional comics. Waltch is a comics artist who contributes to several fanzines, including Ribozine. He clients include Wind West and Ankama.
The books are published by Quirk Books, a new-ish and different book publisher based in Philadelphia
Where Can I Get it
The paperback is available everywhere, as is the e-book version. The e-book version is a bit more appealing since you can just click to the next page instead of having to continually flip through to the next one.
Simon is a French TV show (translated into British English) for kids about a rabbit boy and his family and friends
Who is it for
The animation in Simon is simple and appealing enough that kids as young as 2 will enjoy it, and the themes presented are appropriate for kids up to age 9 or so.
What Kids Like
Simon is not as sanitized as most American and Canadian shows for kids are these days, and the characters are often bickering and dealing with bullies and other realistic situations. My kids like seeing characters handle scenarios that come up in their own life and thus are more relatable.
What Parents Like
I like that there is a show that hits the sweet spot between the overly safe PBS Kids stuff (e.g. Daniel Tiger) and obnoxiously sassy Cartoon Network/Disney stuff aimed at tweens (e.g. Teen Titans Go!). Simon manages to not talk down to kids but isn’t trying to be cool, either.
He’s at an age when little rabbits (and indeed little children!) are starting to come into their own – challenging relationships with parents, embarking upon school life, learning about the world in general, dealing with authority and of course, language.
I also like that it’s a French show. Every culture has a slightly different approach to raising children, which is why I like my kids to see shows like Pocoyo (Spanish), The Fixies (Russian), PJ Masks (French), and Pororo (Korean), each of which gives a glimpse into a world that is not quite the same as the others.
And lastly, the “full” episodes are all 5 minutes, 19 seconds long. This makes the show a bit easier to digest and makes it easier when watching videos close to bedtime. I can say “OK, last one” and know that there will be closure within a few minutes. That’s harder to do with movies or longer shows.
The show is based on books by Stephanie Blake (American-born, living in France) who is best known for books such as “Poo Bum” (2011) and “Stupid Baby” (2012) which were originally published in France and introduce the character of Simon the rabbit.
The show is produced by GO-N Production and premiered on France TV’s Zouzous channel
Blocksworld (not to be confused with similarly-titled games such as “block world”) is one of many Minecraft-inspired games, but Blocksworld stands apart in the quality of the game, the number of features, and the implicit instruction of programming fundamentals.
What Lego is to Minecraft, Duplo is to Blocksworld.
Who is it for
The game is complex enough to be fun and satisfying for almost any age. The controls are simple enough that kids as young as five can get something out of it.
There is a social component to the game, where users can share their creations. While a nice idea, this can lead to some inappropriate creations being available to everyone. Blocksworld has moderators to sift out the inappropriate stuff, but parents should be aware that sometimes nasty things get through.
What Kids Like
This is currently my kids’ favorite game. They would spend ten hours a day playing it. It’s very easy to build stuff, and not just static things like buildings, but driveable cars with lasers and the like. There are the usual game components such as credits and badges and levels, which help motivate and get a sense of accomplishment.
What Parents Like
My favorite aspect is the pseudo-coding that the game uses to give functionality to the creations. If you build a car with laser beams, you need to “program” how the car and lasers operate. This kid of coding is perfect to teach kids fundamentals of programming.
There are so many STEM apps out there, and most of them fail because they try to teach overtly. But most kids don’t want a game that teaches coding. They want a game that is fun, where the teaching is implicit.
The best educational games are those where the education happens in the background. People who played RISK! or Axis & Allies as kids know world geography, not because they were explicitly taught, but because knowing that stuff helped in playing the game.
What the Critics Think
The critics don’t seem to like the game as much as I or my kids do.
• Wow, so many ads! This game has more ads than other games I let my kids play. I allow it because I think the game has enough merits, but the volume of ads is a concern. And since you don’t know what ads are going to be displayed, you need to supervise the kid a bit more than you would otherwise.
• The social/sharing/multiplayer/community feature is well-done. The kids are motivated to share their creations and see what other kids have built. But it’s not hard to imagine what happens when some middle-schoolers find out that they can upload their “Momo” or “Evil Elmo” creations. Blocksworld has moderators who flag this stuff, and it’s generally a safe environment for kids, but again, supervision is strongly recommended.
Who Made it
Blocksworld is made by Linden Lab, A.K.A. Linden Research, Inc., who are best known as the creators of Second Life.
Most Minecraft-like games are made by random teenagers learning to program, but Linden is a group of very experienced developers, and their experience is evident in the quality of the game.
Blocksworld was initially developed by Swedish independent video game developer Boldai, which was acquired by U.S.-based Linden Lab in early 2013.[3] An earlier version of the game was briefly available in 2012 in Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Norway.[4] However, for the subsequent global release, the game was repositioned as a freemium offering where players have the option to purchase premium sets and games, additional building objects and pieces, coins, and other upgrades and extras for a small fee.
Virtual coins serve as the in-game currency, which can be either purchased via the in-app shop or rewarded through various community actions such as having creations rated via stars.
Players used have the option to pay 7.99 (US) or (CAD) dollars for Blocksworld Premium, which gives an infinite amount of designated blocks. Now, Blocksworld Premium is a subscription which has to be paid monthly/yearly and gives more benefits than the original Blocksworld Premium.
In September 2017, Blocksworld was released on Steam, prior to that, you could only play it on your browser or on your mobile device.
Where Can I Get it
Blocksworld is not available for Android, but is for iOS and is now on Steam as well.
What is it The Battle of Polytopia (or simply, “Polytopia”) is a free (ad-free as well) turn-based mobile strategy game.
Who is it for
Winning the game requires some strategic thinking and there is some very mild cartoon violence (about as much violence as in a game of chess) so I would put the lower limit around 7 years old. It’s fun for adults as well, so no upper limit on age.
If you or your child is a fan of Age of Empires, Civilization, or similar resource-management, leveling-up, strategic conquest kinds of games, this is the same but simplified, optimized, and minimized so that you can play on a small screen.
What Kids Like
The game is very addictive. The gameplay is very well-balanced so “just getting by” is possible with some effort but really winning can be tough.
The graphics are very appealing.
What Parents Like
I like that it’s free, with no ads. Too many games (even many paid ones) are full of ads. Polytopia makes revenue by charging for the online multiplayer option or for letting a player buy a tribe that is unavailable in the free version. The game clearly states that the multiplayer option requires spending “real money” so kids won’t be tricked into thinking that they can get it via credits earned in-game.
You can still play “hot-seat” multiplayer games for free, handing the device back and forth in a way that feels like playing chess.
And the game is just fun, very well-polished and balanced in a way few other mobile games are.
The game has attracted a large following and there is now a subreddit and a fan wiki
Concerns/Flaws
Being free and ad-free, I have none of the usual complaints about the apps I let my children use. The theme is of conquest, so there is the suggestion of violence, but not more than you have in chess or checkers, or even tic-tac -toe.
The only real complaint is that in fitting a complex game into a simple mobile-friendly interface, the developers packed a lot of detail into the little isometric tiles. You sometimes have to look very closely to see where your players are.
Who Made it / History
Polytopia was made by a Swedish developer and released in 2016.
The Battle of Polytopia, formerly known as Super Tribes, is a turn-based world-building strategy game developed by Midjiwan AB. The player leads one of fourteen Tribes to conquer a square-shaped world by capturing Cities. Cities earn Stars that can be used to research Technology, train Units to engage in Combat, and develop the surrounding Terrain to gain Population. Be warned, however: the more Cities that are added to the empire, the higher the cost of technological research… and the greater the area that must be protected from the endless onslaught of the other tribes!
You may play in Single player, where the goal of the game is either to gain the highest possible score in 30 turns (Perfection), or to destroy all opposing tribes (Domination).
Alternatively, you could engage in a local multiplayer “Pass & Play” with your friends, or connect with them online and play games from the comfort of your homes!
I’m Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups
What is it I’m Just No Good at Rhyming is a book in the same vein as Shel Silverstein and Edward Lear, with clever wordplay and nonsense verses that often have profound thoughts buried in silly verse.
Who is it for
It’s for families that read together. I found that this is a book that the kids much prefer to be read aloud by an adult, rather than read on their own.
The silliness is over the heads of the very young, so 5 may be the lower limit. Older kids who are competent readers and writers would also enjoy it.
What Kids Like
They like the silliness of it, the monsters, and the occasional whiff of possible violence. Many of the poems suggest at tantalizing secrets.
They also like the whimsical illustrations by Lane Smith
The cover of the book has an endorsement by B.J. Novak, who wrote “The Book with No Pictures”, which remains one of our kids’ favorites. This endorsement helped sell the book to my kids and convince them to give it a try.
What Parents Like
I like that ‘difficult’ or ‘challenging’ text is so appealing to my kids. And I genuinely like some of the poems. Many are like the best of Dr. Suess, causing me to stop and think a bit. My favorite is the eleven-stanza “A Short Saga” which has some of the absurd humor of the song “Oh, Susannah!” but goes beyond that.
The sun that night was freezing hot,
The ground was soaking dry.
I met a man where he was not
And greeted him good-bye.
With shaven beard combed in a mess
And hair as black as snow,
All bundled up in nakedness
And moving blazing snow
…
I said, “Then let’s have never met.”
To this, he nodded “No.”
“This night, I’ll vividly forget.
Until back then, hello.”
Chris Harris is a writer and executive producer for How I Met Your Mother and The Great Indoors, and a writer for The Late Show with David Letterman. His pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, ESPN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on NPR. He was also the author of the anti-travel guide Don’t Go Europe! He lives in Los Angeles.
Lane Smith wrote and illustrated Grandpa Green, which was a 2012 Caldecott Honor book, and It’s a Book, which has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. His other works include the national bestsellers Madam President and John, Paul, George & Ben, the Caldecott Honor winner The Stinky Cheese Man, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, Math Curse, and Science Verse, among others. His books have been New York Times Best Illustrated Books on four occasions. In 2012 the Eric Carle Museum named him an Honor Artist for lifelong innovation in the field of children’s books, and in 2014 he received the Society of Illustrators Lifetime Achievement award. Lane and his wife, book designer Molly Leach, live in rural Connecticut.
Where Can I Get it
I’m Just No Good at Rhyming is available at most major bookstores and Amazon.
Plus-Plus is a building toy made up of pieces that look like two plus signs: ++
They are sort of like Legos, but also sort of like Play-doh
Who is it for
Anyone old enough to manipulate small objects and also old enough to know not to put little things in their mouth should be old enough to use it, so maybe 4 at the lower end. And anyone who still plays with Legos would enjoy Plus-Plus as well, so maybe 9 at the upper end. It would also be a decent office desk toy / stress reliever.
The company also makes a larger version (called, simply, “Big”) that is more than twice the size of regular Plus-Plus and is easier for little hands to work with and are too big to choke on. These would be fun for kids as young as 1 year.
What Kids Like
The bricks/blocks connect easily and it’s very simple to make a figure or vehicle or whatever. Unlike Lego, which more and more rely on special pieces, Plus-Plus has only one shape and size of brick and this uniformity actually makes it easier to design things because you always have every shape of brick you need.
Also, Lego requires rectilinear construction because of the way bricks fit together. But Plus-Plus can fit at angles, resulting in more organic, rounder creations.
Perhaps the most appealing aspect, for some, is that the creations end up looking like Minecraft creations.
What Parents Like
I like having multiple options for building toys.
I like that Plus-Plus are cheap. Because there are no special pieces, Plus-Plus bricks end up costing something like 5¢. The kids like taking toys in the car and on trips and when visiting people, and there is always the risk with Legos that a certain special minifig helmet or something will get lost. With Plus-plus, we can lose a few pieces and no one will notice.
What the Critics Think
The toy gets 4.6 stars at Amazon and 4.9 at FatBrain Toys
Mystery Makers highlighted as one of “2019 Most Trendy Products” at New York Toy Fair
Learning Express “Best Construction Toy 2018”
Concerns/Flaws
I keep comparing Plus-Plus to Legos because the similarities are obvious. Another similarity is that these things get scattered all over the floor and stepping on them is painful. They are a bit of a choking hazard as well for little ones.
Who Made it/History
The company was started in 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark and now has an office in Greenville, SC
Where Can I Get it
Plus-Plus used to be something of a boutique toy, only available at specialty educational stores, but they are now everywhere: Amazon, Target, Kohl’s etc.
You can see the toy in action and images of the various sets on their website https://www.plus-plus.com/
I often have a desire to better myself, but being extremely lazy I seldom make the time. So it’s good for me every time I stumble across a “life hack” that offers a positive change for minimal investment of time or effort. The first such thing I tried was the “7-minute workout“, which is essentially just good, old-fashioned calisthenics, in 30-second sets. It’s a good workout and seems to be at least as beneficial as running a few miles, which is usually too much of a commitment for me to make.
Another one of these life-hacks is Duolingo, which operates on the premise that you only learn effectively in 10-minute chunks. Trying to do more than that has diminishing returns – it’s a waste of time to try to cram for two hours when only that first ten minutes will be effective. I’ve been using Duolingo for several months and can vouch for its ease and effectiveness.
What is it
Duolingo is a free (ad-based) language learning app available on all platforms, including a website. They offer dozens of languages.
Who is it for
It doesn’t seem geared for any particular age group, but a child using it needs to be a competent reader in English, since most of the prompts in the app are written English. Our 7-year-old is a good reader and has been using Duolingo to learn French.
What Kids Like
The interface is heavily gamified, with constant feedback, badges, leveling-up, etc. So there is continual affirmation and a sense of progress.
They see it as yet another game, yet instead of learning about how to defeat zombies or level up their spaceship, they are learning a foreign language.
All instruction is passive and indirect. There is no overt instruction – no lectures, only translation of words and sentences. If you translate correctly, you get a happy chime and your progress bar goes up. If you fail, you get a chance to try again and you can’t complete the level until all the sentences in the level have been translated correctly.
What Parents Like
I like that it works and I need to do nothing to motivate my child since the app is fun on its own. I like that there is an app on my phone that I can share with my child that isn’t yet another game or Youtube, or whatever.
The interface is really one of the most effective teaching environments I’ve ever seen. I wonder whether other subjects could be taught this way.
My complaint is that not all language courses on Duolingo are good. The Chinese one, for example, is terrible. I think the Duolingo interface works best with Roman alphabet languages. Trying to learn Arabic, Russian, or any Asian language will be a challenge – too big of a challenge for a kid because they have to learn the alphabet as well as the vocabulary and grammar.
Who Made it
Duolingo is based in Pittsburgh and was started in 2011. There are currently 300 million users
Caution: Reading this book with your kids will probably make them want to start folding paper airplanes (and you will want to as well), so may not be ideal for bedtime reading.
What is it
The Great Paper Caper is a unique book, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, previously known for “The Incredible Book-Eating Boy” and many other titles.
Most of the creatures (plus one kid) of the forest work together to solve the mystery of why so many tree branches are disappearing.
Who is it for
This is a fun one for non-readers and beginning readers as well as more mature readers. The story is not that complex, but most of the plot is implicit and the very young may not understand what’s going on. For example, on one page we see an owl alighting upon a branch, and a few pages later we see the owl trying to do so again, but no branch is there. Inferring that someone has sawn off the branch is a mental leap that very young kids can’t make.
While younger kids focus on the animals and the overt aspects of the pictures, older kids focus more on the bear and his motivations.
What Kids Like
The book is very dense with details. Even the inside cover includes instructions for different paper airplanes (and the instructions on the inside of the back cover are different from the ones on the front). So they like poring over the drawings, studying the details.
The book is also very varied in how it approaches storytelling. A few pages have overt descriptions of what is happening, other pages rely entirely on images to tell the story. Part of the book is a kid-level police procedural while others parts are a touching, almost somber exploration of the motivation of the “villain” in the story.
And of course, they get inspired to make their own paper airplanes.
What Parents Like
I’m generally a fan of auteur works like this, where the pictures are drawn by the person who wrote the story. Having a single vision for art and word makes it a more personal and unique creation. Collaborative works can be wonderful, but they are more likely to have that taste of where the creative decisions were made by committee. This book does not have that problem, and the occasional weirdness or inconsistency in style makes it that much more interesting for both adults and kids.
This is also fun to read because there are multiple ways to do so. Because so much of the story is told through pictures, I can choose to either describe the actions in detail, or briefly, or I can just stick to the text and let the kids figure out the meaning of the pictures on their own.
The book hints at issues such as mistrust and guilt, and if you take the time the book can spawn some interesting conversations with your kids.
Oliver Jeffers is an Irish artist (born in Australia and now living in Brooklyn) also known for his childrens’ book illustrations, most famous for the pictures in “The Day the Crayons Quit” by Drew Daywalt, and also for the pictures in “The Boy in the Striped Pajames” by John Boyne.
Jeffers has many of his own books as well, that he wrote and illustrated on his own.
He has been putting out two or three books each year since 2004.
‘The Wild Robot’ and its sequel ‘The Wild Robot Escapes’ is a very charming 2-part (so far) series about a sentient robot surviving in the wilderness, written and illustrated by Peter Brown.
Who is it for
The official website gives the recommended ages of 8 to 11, but every one of us enjoyed the audio book, even the 4-year-old. The books are chapter books, with occasional (wonderful) illustrations, so young readers who are used to a lot of pictures won’t want to read it. But the story is deep enough that adults and older children would enjoy it.
What Kids Like
It has robots, and fighting, and talking animals, but also feels like a “grown-up” story in some ways. Characters suffer and get distressed. Some characters die. This is all handled very well, and is not upsetting to kids.
What Parents Like
The story is surprisingly rich and deep for a book aimed at children. While the story on the surface may seem simple and childish, the themes of identity and purpose and community are thought-provoking.
The audiobooks were rare examples of stories that both adults and kids were eager to continue listening to.
The audio books were read by Kate Atwater / Kathleen McInerney (I think it’s the same person, but am not sure). The audio books are excellent for long car trips.
"However, I wanted to tell a different kind of robot story. I wanted to tell the story of a robot who finds harmony in the last place you’d expect. I wanted to tell a robot nature story."
…
"For this to truly be a “robot nature story” Roz would need to encounter a wide variety of natural elements. And the story would have to take place in the future to explain the existence of intelligent robots. I imagined how the wilderness might look in a few hundred years, and two things occurred to me: 1) because of climate change and rising sea levels, animals from far and wide might eventually be forced together as they all seek higher ground, and 2) some of that higher ground might become completely surrounded by water, forming new islands. With that in mind, I set the story far in the future, on a rugged northern island that was formed by rising seas, and that had a diverse array of weather and flora and fauna."
…
"The Wild Robot is the story of Rozzum unit 7134, a robot who wakes up for the very first time to find that she’s alone on a remote, wild island. Roz doesn’t know how she got there, or where she came from: she only knows that she wants to stay alive. And by robotically studying her environment she learns everything she needs to know. She learns how to move through the wilderness, how to avoid danger, she even learns how to communicate with the animals. But the most important lesson Roz learns is that kindness can be a survival skill. And she uses kindness to develop friends and a family and a peaceful life for herself. Until her mysterious past catches up with her.
It took eight years, but I finally found an answer to the question that led me down this path. What would an intelligent robot do in the wilderness? She’d make the wilderness her home."
Where Can I Get it
You can read a preview here although it does not include the illustrations.
