Meet Our Founder

Awards

 


Testimonials

"Drama of historical proportions, an awesome guide, and games and challenges, what more could a teen on vacation ask for?"

- School Library Journal's

Touch & Go

Guide to the Best Apps for Children and Teens

 

"The City of Lights was once made bright by the flash of a revolution’s guillotine, and this app provides a glimpse into one of Paris' pivotal backstories... through the eyes of one if its key players, satisfying both historian and eager tourist."

- Kirkus App Reviews

 

App Chats

Sarah Towle and Katie Davis

Burp about iBooks and Apps

on Katie's celebrated podcast #129


What's a StoryApp iTinerary?

Sarah chats with 

Al Vuona of The Public Eye

WICN New England

 

SCBWI Bologna 2012

Whitney Stewart interviews

Author-App Creator, Sarah Towle, for

CYNSATIONS

 

 

Time Traveler Tours

Now Open for Submissions!

Julie Hedlund reveals all...

 

 

Entries in Interactive Books (2)

Thursday
Jan312013

Time Traveler Tours' 1st Interactive Book to Hit iBookstores Worldwide, 6 February 2013

 

On February 6, 2013, Time Traveler Tours brings to the iBookstore the same award-winning concept it pioneered in the App Store – history through story and games – under the imprint Time Traveler Tales.

A mash up of the American Girl series (but global) and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (but focused on history), Time Traveler Tales interactive books reveal the past through creative non-fiction storytelling and interactive games.

As with their mobile iTineraries, each story in the coming Time Traveler Tales collection is a 1st person account of history by a figure whose actions helped shape that time. Tales are rooted in historical fact and illustrated with full-color period artwork. They are peppered throughout with interactive images and maps, multiple-choice questions, and puzzles that extend and enhance reader understanding of the narrators’ place and époque.

Targeted to youth, ages 12 and up, Time Traveler Tales are perfect companions for history, social studies, and humanities classrooms the world over.

They also make great reading for history buffs and armchair travelers.

The first interactive book in the collection, Beware Madame La Guillotine, is a trip back in time to the French Revolution, narrated by 24-year-old school-girl-turned-murderess, Charlotte Corday. While in prison and awaiting execution by guillotine, Charlotte recounts her personal journey through Paris at the time of the French Revolution. Explaining how and why she stabbed radical propagandist Jean-Paul Marat, she leads the reader from the Palais Royal, where she bought her murder weapon, to her prison, the Conciergerie, the Revolution’s antechamber to the guillotine.

As Charlotte weaves her yarn, she demystifies in a way that is captivating, yet comprehensible, the complex, cataclysmic, paradigmatic social shift set off by the French Revolution that rocked not only her nation, but eventually the world. She leaves readers wondering if violence is ever justified.

Time Traveler Tours & Tales Founder and Creative Director, Sarah Towle, is a career educator, writer, and inveterate traveler who moved to Paris in 2004. Frustrated by a lack of engaging cultural opportunities for youth, she began writing story-based historical itineraries for her then-preteen daughter. She knew she’d found the perfect delivery mechanism for these Tours when she held an iPhone in her hand for the first time.

Time Traveler Tours first app, also recounting Charlotte's story, was a School Library Journal Top 10 2011 App, a Teachers With Apps Top 10 2011 Tried & True Classroom App, and a Top 10 2012 Educational Travel App by the World Youth & Student Educational Travel Confederation.

The unveiling of Apple’s iBooks Author in 2012 opened yet a new door for Sarah and the Time Traveler Tours concept, enabling her to republish her Tours as Tales for the benefit of students and educators.

Combining the traditional power of narrative with the latest in technology, Time Traveler Tours & Tales put the past in the palm of your hand and allow you to discover history with those who made it.

Beware Madame La Guillotine: The French Revolution with Charlotte Corday will be available in iBookstores worldwide from February 6, 2013, for the introductory price of USD 4.99.

To request an advance copy for review, and/or schedule an interview, please contact Sarah Towle: stowle@timetravelertours.com.

 

 

Tuesday
Mar292011

Opinion: What is "Interactivity"?

Today's issue of PCSpeed cites children’s author, Julia Donaldson, on why she has decided not to put her award winning, Gruffalo, into eBook format. According to Julia, when children discover that touching a certain hidden button will make the character’s neck grow then they just spend their time “fiddling with the wretched button” and not reading or listening to the story.  On this point, I have to say, I totally agree. 

But there are gimmicks.  And there is interaction. 

The issue, really, is how the children's book industry currently interprets the notion of “interaction”. 

Too many of today’s eBooks and book Apps are laced with gimmicks – bells and whistles, buttons and doo-dads – posing as interactive elements. Finding the button that will make the dog’s tail wag or the bird fly or the gnome do a back flip is fun, but doesn’t add anything to the story and, as Julia maintains, may even detract from it.

True interaction, I believe, should open the world of the story up to another layer of thinking and doing that has the potential to teach. Interactive elements connect with and collaborate with the story, leading the reader to a related experience that, once completed, brings them back to the story once again.

Interaction in its purest definition is two-way communication; it's a give and take. As it relates to digital books, interactivity should never be the end goal of user participation – touch the dog so the tail wags – but should enhance the user’s experience and engagement with story – touch the dog to make it run to the right corner, grab it in its teeth, and turn the page. Above all, interactivity should never take over the role of the reader’s active imagination, but should encourage the reader to imagine beyond the page.

This is how we think about interactivity at the Time Traveler Tours. Some will fault our product, saying there is not enough animation.  Rather, what our StoryApps provide are intellectual challenges, didactic games, and scavenger hunts that serve the story, enhance the user’s experience of it and allow for learning and engagement in a fun, stress-free way.  With Time Traveler Tours you approach history through story and learn without knowing you are learning. Archival images from the era in question are highlighted throughout not for their back-flipping gnomes and fluttering birds, but for their merits as works of art and/or historical propaganda. 

While I agree with Julia Donaldson’s point of view and admire her unwillingness to join the crowd just for the sake of it, I would also urge her to imagine how the Gruffalo could be truly interactive.  No doubt there are myriad ways.  We just haven't thought of them yet.

 

Thanks to Julia Donalsohn and Axel Scheffler for use of the Gruffalo image.

Click here to purchase the Gruffalo from Amazon.co.uk!


If you liked this post, you may also like our opinion piece: "Is the Book Dying?"