Luca Lashes Visits Mommy in the Hospital

By Luca Lashes LLC
Price $1.99
Age 0-4 yrs.

This interactive ebook is just one in a series about a boy named Luca whose magical eyelashes give him courage when dealing with new and unexpected situations. A key ingredient and strength of the series is that it is geared towards helping children deal with common, but sometimes stressful, occurrences that are a natural part of childhood. The stories, along with suggestions and talking points for parents at the end, are designed to help parents guide children through these experiences in an emotionally healthy way. Each page is loaded with a variety of playful sound effects and animations triggered by the reader tapping or swiping the screen, and has a feature called Screen Tilt animation. The illustrations are lush and hand drawn. The app can either be set to 'Read to me' mode, in which individual words are highlighted as they're read, forming an associative bond, or it can be set to 'By myself' mode. The narration can be set to any of several languages. This particular story has a gentle, loving quality that eases the anxiety around visiting a family member in the hospital (in this case Mommy), a situation for which parents and children alike could use all the support they can get.