Get your fantasy-fan kids motivated to create and imagine with art, writing, and the promise of toys!
Addison’s Tales from Wivern Digital inspires kids with a recently launched competition that will turn a child’s made-up story character into a toy –every month until the end of December!
Addison’s Tales Competition
1. Kids, parents and teachers: Visit the new and beautifully designed interactive cottage at AddisonsTales.com.
You’re greeted by the writer of Addison’s Tales, Cornelius. Click on the sparkly stars to meet some of the story’s characters.
2. Click on Mr. Cornelius Addison and read “The Dream” story about Mack’s wild and imaginative store where he sells characters. This will help you get ideas for the character contest. Here’s an excerpt:
“Strolling slowly towards the shop was a huge pink thing. And believe me, ‘thing’ is the only word you could use to describe such a strange creature. It looked like a gigantic pink jellybean, but covered in large purple spots, and it must have been over fifty feet high! It had no face except for a pink horn-like hairdo that rose up and out from the top of its head that poked out from the top of its polka-dotted body. Little wisps of hair sprouted at the base of the horn. In one arm it carried a huge cane basket. Its feet were like rhino feet, and although I could not explain how it looked like it was walking backwards while walking forwards.”
The key message of “The Dream” is getting kids to trap their characters inside finished stories, otherwise they’ll remain figments of the imagination and never be “real” like the solid characters in the cottage that can be discovered inside the apps already available from Addison’s Tales.
3. Kids invent an imaginative story character for Addison’s Tales.
4. Parents and teachers submit your child or students’ characters here.
Super Cool Prize(s)
Mr. Addison will frame a select number of submitted characters on his wall each week, with the artist’s nickname, country and character name there for all to see.
At the end of the month, a special jury of animators, illustrators and one toymaker will choose the most curious of the characters to turn into a plush toy and send to the lucky artist.
Ready, Set, Imagine!
Get writing and drawing! This is your big chance!!
A lot of care and thought has gone into creating the site and associated apps and music, so it’s definitely worth spending some time exploring this delightful storyworld that has been specially crafted for tablet devices. The company also has a lot of info about how they are building Addison’s Tales at their website for parents and teachers: www.wiverndigital.com.
iPad Links
For those of you with iPads, “The Dream” is available for free.
Download the first adventure story, Penelope, on the iPad for $3.99. (It’s about a curious cat, Penelope, and her useless friend Knuckles who are on a quest to find the hiding place of the fallen start that will bring light to the caverns of the gnomes.)
Also available is Harry the Huntsman for $1.99.
Ready, Set, Go . . . create a character!
*I received compensation for this review/article, but all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own. Please see my disclosure policy here.
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Will-i-am says
You can also get kids interested in playing the music from the tales, as the website has a little mouse called Vincent that pops up elsewhere in the Addison’s Tales storyworld who hands out the label’s sheet music in PDF form. Children learning music (and parents) can just turn their tablets vertically, place the tablet on the music stand and play the music directly from that.
Riley Roam says
Very cool! I’m loving transmedia storytelling these days.