My six-year-old came home this week asking about Rosa Parks, impressed with what she knew of her story and, very shocked by it. I feel so fortunate thats she’s growing up in such a diverse community, that she couldn’t even comprehend a world where her best friend and she couldn’t sit together on a bus or in an ice cream shop. It lead to a wonderful if difficult discussion, and I immediately found the Riding with Rosa Parks app on the iTunes store to continue the conversation.

This is a very basic, free storybook app, offering an age-appropriate introduction to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It’s a good start if your kids are asking about Martin Luther King Jr and other aspects of the Civil Rights Movement in America.

Certainly the ebook is incredibly simplified, both in story and in navigation–it’s pretty free of bells and whistles with the exception of definitions of basic words you can click on, like law and rights.  It’s made for J-level early readers (so about four to six, depending on your kid) and will probably feel like the books they’re bringing home from kindergarten.

Even for slightly older kids, the question prompts in the back should help open greater discussions about civil disobedience, standing up for your beliefs, and how a single individual can in fact make a difference.

Download the Riding with Rosa Parks app from ReadSmart’s Learning A-Z series. It’s free for iOS from the app store.