Mr. Pencil (LeapFrog Kids' Ultra eBook Review)

The lovely folks at LeapFrog asked if the girls and I would like to review another LeapFrog product, and I readily agreed. They sent the new Mr. Pencil Ultra eBook a few weeks ago, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on the product tonight. If you want to know what the girls thought, I think the photo below tells you everything you need to know:

It's always a sign that you picked something cool out when it looks like a pair of ravenous wolverines ripped open the package in a frantic effort to gain access to the item inside. I left the box out on the table one afternoon, and made a mental note to show it to the girls later and get their thoughts on it.

I found Natalie not too long after, sitting in the family room, face animated with pleasure, LeapPad2 in her hands.

"Mommy, where did you get this?" she looked up. "It's pretty awesome."

I'm just glad it wasn't a birthday gift for a friend or anything! We had a chat about not opening things that don't belong to her (yet), and then I asked her what she thought about the eBook.

She thought the story was funny, she liked that there were characters you don't see every day (talking pencils), and she loved that the story had games to go along with it.

I'll add the "trailer" for the eBook below. Hopefully you can see it; for some reason it disappeared earlier. (You'll have to click over to see it if you're viewing this in an email or Reader):


As I've said before, as a parent, I appreciate the fact that LeapFrog does a great job to create learning opportunities with their games, apps, and eBooks. With Mr. Pencil (The Lost Colors of Doodleburg), kids have room to grow with reading levels that adjust according to their abilities, a visual dictionary, handwriting activities, and mini games that bring the stories to life.

With this particular eBook, I love the activities designed to help children practice proper letter strokes and also to master difficult letters as they improve. This is a great, fun supplement in addition to preschool!

Do your kids enjoy learning games and eBooks?

If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, I hope you'll click your "Pin It" button to add this post to Pinterest, or a +1 for Google+. And I always appreciate kind comments!

LeapFrog sent the Ultra eBook to me to review, but I was not financially compensated. All opinions are, as always, my own.