Stella & Sam: Rainy Days and Rainbows, a seriously cute and sweet “moving story” for kids.
I try to focus on reading apps for my kids when it comes to “stories” on the iPad. Even if there are moving pictures, I generally try to find ones that at least have writing in the background to them, so Stella & Sam escapes from that box a bit, but I’ll tell you right off the bat – I don’t mind it at all.
The app is pretty straightforward. It’s a story about Stella, her little brother Sam and their dog, Fred.
It’s a rainy, ugly day outside and Sam is busy coloring and painting on the floor when poor Fred gets his feet into Sam’s paints and a very sweet little story ensues.
The first thing I noticed when loading up the App/Show is that this is top, top quality. The production behind this is seriously StellaR (Sorry, I’m just in a bad pun mood today I guess!). The voice acting is great on every person involved and the character design and art is very, very appealing.
And not just to my daughters, but to me as well.
The story is a nice change from the now standard “Brother vs. Sister” type stories, where they put each other down or just constantly bicker. Here, they clearly love and respect each other. But it’s not done in a preachy eye-rolling way. It’s just… sweet and cute. And for a brother and sister willing to travel out in the rain to walk their dog, Fred, well that’s pretty darn cool.
The story alone lasts about 3 or 4 minutes. While it lasts, it is great. I’ve watched it a few times (for review purposes only of course 
) and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit, as have my daughters.
The interactive games, of which there are 3, are nice for very young children. My girls, being 6, found them fun and all, but there was no challenge to them. There’s also not much in the way of staying power. You can’t save the pictures and the games don’t present much depth, especially if you were to compare them to the Toy Story interactive books.
But that on its own brings up an interesting point. This is a very different offering in the App Store. It’s not a book. It’s not a game. It’s not an entire show. It can’t be fit into a specific genre, but it certainly is appealing and should be considered if you have kids.
What’s Great
- Top quality production. It’s like it was ripped right off of a fantastic kids show right from TV.
- The story. It’s sweet, simple, not overly preachy and very enjoyable for parents and kids.
- Highly appealing artwork, character designs and colors. I believe, as a parent, having characters that really attract kids to them will further instill an ability for kids to relate to who they’re watching, it works very well here.
What Could be Better
- The games don’t really provide much for any kids over, say, 2. Even for those with younger kids, there’s very little interaction, and no huge draw to come back and do it again. You can’t save the pictures you create, and there’s really no purpose to the other 2.
- The story is very, very short. Around about 5 minutes, maybe a bit less. Even if you include the games, it is a very small amount of content for the price.
- Although it’s a great story with fantastic morals, there’s no educational value in the mini-games, they’re simply there for fun, and it would be nice to have seen a bit more “meat” to them.
My Summary
I find Stella and Sam: Rainy Days and Rainbows a bit of an odd duck to summarize. On one hand, it’s one of the most enjoyable kids stories I’ve seen in a very long time. The voice acting is simply superb and it makes me want to run out and grab the books this is based off of. The characters are terrifically cute, even Fred the dog. But as a parent who has to pick and choose where money is spent, it’s hard to justify spending $2.99 on an app that simply doesn’t have a ton of content in it, and that’s the problem. Nothing is bad, here, but there just isn’t enough. I want more. My daughters want more. And, honestly, for the price I would like to have seen more. If the app was slightly lower in price, or if they were able to add a full episode, it would be a no brainer. But, that said, my girls very much love it, and I can’t see them wanting to have it removed from my iPad anytime soon, so take that for what it’s worth
.
Final Verdict
Fun, entertaining, but a bit too expensive for a minimal amount of content.
Price: $2.99
iTunes Link – iPad ONLY
**Tested on a 1st and 2nd Generation iPad WiFi model.**NOTE – This is for the iPad ONLY! This will not work on the iPhone. It is NOT universal so please, please do not go in expecting this to work on your iPhone or iPod touch.
