When my children discovered the Three Little Pigs storybook app on a friend’s iPad, I had absolutely zero doubt in my mind that we’d be running home to purchase it that very night. In a word, this app is masterful. Or to use more words, it’s charming, it’s humorous, and darn it, where were iPads when I was a kid?

The interactive storybook brings the classic story to life with a very modern dose of humor–let’s just say the Big Bad Wolf chases the little swine in a van right out of Scooby Doo and the first little pig hopes his house of straw doesn’t bring on hay fever. It reminds me of how authors like Mo Willems or Jon Scieszka might have interpreted the tale.

The app really makes full use of interactive elements, with three modes for kids of various reading levels–it can be read to you (by adorable British children), you can read it yourself, or there’s a read and play mode that my kids love. Throughout the story, kids can make the pigs flip around, build houses, or spout out quippy little comments to one another. Your kids will quite literally discover something new every time they read it.

And of course the best part, if you ask my girls, is getting to blow the houses down yourself by blowing right into the iPad.

Kids as young as 2.5 or 3 will get a kick out of it, though the 5 and 6 year-olds will really get to appreciate all the details. And of course I like it too. Because it sounds nothing at all like Talking Tom. –Liz

The Three Little Pigs app by Nosy Crow is available for iPad for $7.99, iPhone for $3.99, and iPod touch. You can also try out the free lite version.

[thanks holly!]