Meet Morris Lessmore

I have to share with you the most amazing children's picture book ever. And if you are not into picture books, how about an award wining Pixar "short" video or an iPad/iPhone App or an interactive webpage?  

This story has the best opening line and the narrator brings it to life..... 

Morris Lessmore loved words.  He loved stories.  He loved books.  His life was a book of his own writing, one orderly page after another.  He would open it every morning and write of his joys and sorrows, of all that he knew and everything that he hoped.

The picture book goes on to show Morris living out his life with books.. He lives with them, reads to them, fixes their covers, and grows old with them. Meanwhile he's writing his own book to leave behind to keep his book-friends company. 

On the iPad App, you can listen to the narration while you create the action on each page. Or, if you want less interaction and more focus on the paper book, you can use the other $.99 iTunes IMAG-N-O-TRON app to experience "augmented reality". It's a fancy word for mixing a 3-d image with your surroundings. You can print off an 8 1/2 by 11 inch page like above and hold your iPad or phone over it and it will mix the images as you move the device - it looks like books flying around you. The app is only a few dollars and the printouts are available with it. I used the iPad app with my boys and book club students and they loved it, but the print outs would have been fun at the club, too.

What fun for under $10!  And what an amazing way to share the love of books than with a mash of old fashioned writing and artwork and modern technology - no matter your age, it just draws you in!

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