Think of stories and children and what else comes to mind automatically? Yes, grandparents!
The lockdown has disrupted our lives in more ways than we can imagine. There is a lot of talk around children and school, but there is one thing children miss terribly and that is time with their grandparents. The internet is doing the rounds on stories of grandparents and grandchildren missing each other and meeting after a prolonged forced lockdown, and they are truly heartwarming!
Many of us have sought out technology to fill the gaps in our lives. Video conferencing has replaced personal meetings both on the personal as well as professional front.
However, for activities like storytelling that build personal relationships, we require something more. We need immersion and experience, and technology once again rises to the occasion.
MaPa Story is a story narration app that allows you to have your child listen to pre-loaded stories on the app. But, hasn’t that robotic story narration become a little jaded for all of us?
The MaPa story app brings a touch of personal to storytelling by letting us record the story narration in our own voice. Children, parents, teachers, and grandparents can exchange stories narrated in their own voices. You may wonder what’s different from sending a story recorded as a voice message.
The great feature of the app is that it records our voices as we turn the story page by page- we can read what’s on the page, and then add context to it in our style.
A Detailed Review Of The MaPa Story App with screenshots:
The MaPa Story App opens with two settings- Child mode/Parent Mode.
Opening screen
The trial version has two free stories on offer- Aneesa’s New Doll & The Little Red Riding Hood
I chose to hear the Little Red Riding Hood, after which I was directed to choose the language of narration:
The icons on the left let you choose what you want to do with the story:
- The headphones icon lets you listen to the automatic recording
- The tablet read icon allows you to read
- The mic icon allows you to record your own voice over the story.
I love the feature where it allows us to pause the recording after reading every page: It also allows us to re-record only the page, instead of going back to the beginning of the story.
Once you are done recording the whole story, it auto-compiles your recordings into a smooth story. Once, it has compiled, you get to share it with your groups.
The team has also taken care to make the MaPa story narration experience extremely affordable. It is available for only INR. 365/year or INR 100/month.
The Annual subscription makes it available for INR 1 per day!
Features we love about the MaPa Story app:
- The auto-narration is currently available in 2 languages: Hindi and English.
- You can pick a story and narrate at your pace, even add your sound effect or translation in another language.
- That the app actually simulates turning a page in a book while reading(love this!)
- It compiles it all into one story and adds it to the library of the app for future retrieval.
- Allows you to share it with a preferred group.
- Has a parent/child mode.
- The pricing at INR 1/day is super-accessible!
Features we would like included:
- The MaPa library has a wide selection of stories, but it would be wonderful to be able to choose our own stories from a wider selection and upload them for ease of narration.
Special Note:
The MaPa team is providing 48 hours of unrestricted access next month. If you want to try it out for the festive season, sign up today! You can download the app for free HERE.
Also Read: Book Review: The Grand Story of Ikli Chokli by Tulika Books
Kidskintha provides a detailed, unbiased review of products. Write to us at reviews@kidskintha.com for more such reviews.
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels
