Australia Day Special - Part 1 Lulu in Australia

Name: Lulu in Australia

Format: iOS for iPad and iPod/iPhone

Publisher: Zanzibook

Price in AUD (at time of review): $2.99

In app purchases enabled? No

Age suitable for: 3 - 7

Curriculum links: Geography/SoSE
Ausvels/Australian Curriculum: The Humanities (History and Geography) and English

Lulu in Australia is an interactive storybook. It follows the story of Lulu and Zazou as they travel around Australia. It introduces native animals like koalas and emus, as well as some of the major cities in Australia.

I like that there are no in app purchases or pop-up adds, in this way it's very child-friendly. The interface is easy to navigate, and there all of the written content is read by the narrator.

I'm not so keen on the North American accent of the narrator, and some words (like Brisbane) are mispronounced. As a very early example of interactive storybooks, the interactions are quite limited. Some of the newer examples have much more substance. There is a matching game, where children can make fun animals, but this is likely to appeal only to very young children.

It's available in English, French and Portugese and there are now a number of other titles available in the series, with Lulu travelling to Polynesia, the Amazon, and other exotic locations.

This app has been around for a few years now, and in fact was one of the very first we purchased for Miss 6's iPod. We were planning a trip to Australia at the time and thought it would be a good way for her to get excited about the trip. For this purpose, it was very good. She has played with it a few times since, but it's not something that grabs her attention for very long.

I would recommend this more for people not in Australia, who wanted their children to learn a few facts about it.

Rating (out of 5) - 3.5