CONTACT:

Kyle Good, Scholastic 212-343-4563 kgood@scholastic.com

Sara Sinek, Scholastic 212-343-6899 ssinek@scholastic.com

“Scholastic’s Answer to Amazon.com is STORIA”        

 -- Children’s Technology Review, May 2012

New York, NY – May 24, 2012 – The Children’s Technology Review, the “Consumer Reports” of products and trends in children’s interactive media, has awarded Storia^™, Scholastic’s new ereading app, with the 2012 Editor’s Choice Award.  The Editor’s Choice Awards are given to only the highest quality children’s products in the interactive media category. These are the “no fail” products, worthy of their cost, and able to keep children engaged for days at a time.

According to Children’s Technology Review Editor Warren Buckleitner, “In the past month, we’ve notice a dramatic increase in the number of tablet based book collections that specifically target children. Which is best? If you study the ratings, you’ll see that while each has specific strengths and weaknesses, Scholastic’s Storia comes out on top.”

Children’s Technology Review tested Storia on the iPad. Here are excerpts from the review:  “We found all aspects of the Storia experience to be solid and easy to use. Features include the ability to quickly jump between shelf and list view, so if you have a lot of books you can browse your titles alphabetically.  Other nice touches include the ability to switch skins.  The books look as if they are scanned versions of the printed pages… Once a book is downloaded, it lives within the app, along with a customized dictionary. Features include some excellent navigation features, silky smooth page turning and a no-frills dictionary system.  Some of the books are marked with lightening symbol, which means they have been enhanced with word puzzles or some other type of comprehensive game. The design is clean and responsive throughout.”  Buckleitner continued, “Of course the strength of any ebook delivery system is the library.  In that department, few can match the resources of a company like Scholastic…. In order to make this product Scholastic Book Club friendly, the system rewards teachers with points (for their classroom).”

Deborah Forte, Executive Vice President and President, Scholastic Media, the group that created the Storia application, commented, “We’re delighted that Storia’s unique functionality designed to support kids reading has been recognized by Warren Buckleitner who is widely respected as an expert on children's software. He joins the many teachers, parents and kids who have expressed their enthusiasm and appreciation for Storia.”

Storia is a FREE ereading app specifically designed to support kids’ reading, and also help parents monitor kids’ reading progress. Storia comes with FIVE FREE ebooks, and offers access to a wide variety of age-appropriate titles for children from toddler to teen. The selections are carefully curated to offer a range of children’s digital picture, chapter and interactive ebooks on a variety of topics and reading levels that are presented in a way that is true to the original print versions. A selection of Storia ebooks are enriched with fun, educational activities including vocabulary games, comprehension activities and fun video content as a reward when kids finish the book.

On Storia, parents can set up individual bookshelves for each of their children, purchase new ebooks, and track a child’s reading progress through each book. Parents can find out which words the child learned, how many pages they read, and how long their child spent reading each day. 

To learn more about Storia visit http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/storia. For more information about Scholastic visit http://mediaroom.scholastic.com .

# # #