Raising a Ruckus at FableVision Studios

by Gale Pryor, Ruckus Media Contributing Writer

11/16/2010

I need a good reason to thread my way through Boston traffic on a Friday evening. This past week, the Ruckus Media VIP App Release Party at FableVision Studios was an excellent reason.  Celebrate the launch of five new iPhone and iPad apps from Ruckus with food, drinks and music? I’ll be right over!

FableVision’s space is several floors above the Boston Children’s Museum on Children’s Wharf on the water in downtown Boston. It is as bright and inventive and inviting as the museum itself.  FableVision creates award-winning websites, games and animated films. It was fascinating and fun to peek into the home of the FableVision development team—the masters behind the digitalization and more of the first five Ruckus Media Play-Read-and-Record-Along apps.  

Among the pleasures of the evening was reconnecting with familiar faces from the world of children’s books. Authors, illustrators, publishers and reviewers from Boston and beyond came to the Ruckus launch, including Robie Harris, best-selling children’s book author and Roger Sutton, Editor-in-Chief of The Horn Book (@hornbook).  Both Robie and Roger were intrigued by the new possibilities for storytelling offered by interactive apps.  Alicia Potter from Family Fun magazine (@FamilyFun) said she was looking forward to introducing her editors to this new medium for children.

Faces from the new frontier joined the Ruckus team: Bloggers Dawn Rennert of She is Too Fond of Books (@toofondofbooks), Christy Matte of  More Than Mommy (@morethanmommy) and About.com, Niri Jaganath of Mommy Niri (@mommyniri) and Melanie Feehan of Coupon Goddess (@coupongoddess).  They checked out the newest apps from Ruckus, including The Velveteen Rabbit  and other storybook apps now available on iTunes, and talked about our forthcoming original Ruckus apps, A Present for Milo by Mike Austin and Andrew Answers by Alan Katz.  Teachers Deb Donahue and Karen Kosko explored the apps and were full of suggestions for using them in classrooms.

While the grown ups chatted and noshed, the kids in attendance got down to business with the iPads scattered around the room. No instructions were required for this crowd as they rapidly opened apps and started to read, touch and play, completely immersed in what was, truly, the very best part of the evening.