Miss Rosie Red – Let me see… what will I be?
This week my Friday Pick{ture Book} is Miss Rosie Red – Let me see… what will I be? When Rosie Red receives an invitation to her friend Darcy’s party, she tries on all sorts of costumes with the help of Mum, Baby and her cat Cooper until she finds out just who she wants to be.
On the face of it, this is firmly girly territory – a story about dressing up and parties. What I really like about this app, however, is that it steers away from girliness. The colour scheme is not predominantly pink but mixes reds, yellows, and pinks with other colours. Rosie has fabulous red hair and matching red and white stripey tights, while Mum has red shoes and Baby has a red dummy. The costumes she tries on do include a fairy outfit, but also an astronaut and a dinosaur. But fairy wings might get stuck in birthday cake icing, you can’t eat twirly whirly crisps through an astronaut’s helmet, and a dinosaur might scare everyone away!
Little Miss Chatterbox (at about the same age as Rosie) loves joining in with the refrain “Let me see… what will I be? How about…” and then turning the page to find out what costume Rosie tries on next.
Finally, Rosie decides nothing is quite right and… “I’ll be… me! Ta da!” You could say the ending is slightly predictable, but it is a satisfying one nonetheless.
In addition to the charming illustrations and background music, the seriously cute narration by three year old Anna from Northern Ireland helps to bring Rosie Red’s character to life. I understand that a TV series is in the works, and can’t wait to see how they bring Rosie to the screen.
I should mention that this is a simple book app where the only interaction is to tap the screen to gradually reveal each part of the page. However this helps to lead the reader through the story, and I don’t think it necessarily needs more bells and whistles. The app could however do with a page menu as you are not able to jump to a specific page within in the story.
Miss Rosie Red – Let Me See… What Will I Be? developed by Dog Ears. Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Available from https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/miss-rosie-red-what-will-i-be/id455708503?mt=8 priced at £1.99/$ 2.99 at time of writing.
Miss Rosie Red – Let Me See… What Will I Be? was written and illustrated by Trisha Deery, and published by Dog Ears (2011). ISBN: 9781908065001
