Macenstein

Yes, Sesame Street’s “The Monster at the End of This Book ($3.99 iTunes)” may seems like an odd choice for me to review, but even a heart as cold and cynical as mine can occasionally thaw when confronted with a childhood memory this awesome, especially when it is seen through the eyes of my OWN children, on my magical iPhone.

The Monster at the End of This Book is an animated, interactive storybook – the paperback version of which has been around since I was a kid– and whether the $3.99 is worth it for the story that takes roughly 8 minutes to get through will depend on your kid and their love of Sesame characters and YOUR tolerance of hearing Grover scream, as that 8 minutes can loop into an hour or more of repeat readings. Personally, having grown up in the pre-Elmo era of Sesame Street, Grover, and more specifically, SUPER Grover were always my favorite characters, mainly because he never tried to teach us anything, he was pure entertainment (with the notable exception of “Near” and “far”).

The book is very well done, although most of the “interactivity” on this title involves simply hitting the page corner to advance the page, and occasionally clicking on different areas of the page to make Grover react. If your kid gets stuck, Grover will eventually spell out what he/she should do to keep things moving. But this somewhat limited interaction is more than enough, as the REAL star of the story is Grover, and he is well-voiced by Eric Jacobson. My kids are now just on the far edge of being too old for this kind of thing, yet they laughed out loud at Grover’s panicked freaking out.

For some reason this book reminds me of the doctor’s office, so I assume it must have been in the waiting room of my pediatrician, something I will probably remember 50 years from now when I don’t know my own name. Anyway, if your kids (or YOU) are fans of Sesame and Grover in particular, or if you want to re-live a childhood memory, pick up The Monster at the End of This Book ($3.99 iTunes). For those of you who are slightly younger and can tolerate Elmo, there is also the Elmo-themed sequel, Another Monster at the End of This Book ($3.99) , which I found to be somewhat derivative.