A very good friend of mine is running an Indiegogo campaign.

Little summary:
"Books are awesome. They can teach, inspire and transport you to magical places simply by using your imagination. The book we are developing at Dara uses technology to make this experience even more special, enabling children to interact with stories in ways never before imagined. Thanks to the accompanying app, children become the storytellers of their own adventure by interacting with 3D characters that pop out of its pages. And they absolutely love it!"

But you should really check it out by yourself:
The next generation of children's books - by Dara

If you like it, please share with as many people as possible or even maybe fund it!

Thanks for your time
Cheers!

Umm. No. No, thanks.

Teach children to read. Just read, and use their imagination. We shouldn't teach children that EVERYTHING comes with an app. In my humble opinion, this is a bad idea.

One does not exclude the other, this and proper books can perfectly coexist.

I just bought Treasure Island, Alice Through The Looking Glass, Invisible Man, Peter Pan and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea because I'm sick of my kids being given poorly written nonsense like Harry Potter and other books that do nothing but insult their intelligence.

Rock the classics man!

I'm not quite sure. I keep reading how its a growing problem to drag kids away from their tablets and smartphones etc. and I'm not sure if giving them a book with an app and "cool interactive 3D stuff wow it's so epic" is going to help encourage them to pick up normal books. I'm afraid it'll be the exact opposite.

So children's books shouldn't have pictures in them?

Have you ever even seen a children's book before? Just wondering.

I'm talking about an app and using a smartphone while reading.

You're talking about pictures.

Not the same thing.

I spent a small fortune on a set of children's books. They were books that I read at 5 or 6 and it got me into fantasy. Still great books. They are Tim and the hidden people.

He was talking about digital stuff not illustrations. Older children books don't get enough credit, there are a lot of very well written short novels that are great for all ages. Take the Hobbit for example. I have been reading that one since I was about 7 yrs old. They always have a bit of a dark side too which I love.

The Chronicles of Prydain are among my favourite books, great read for anyone who wants to read something of The Hobbits quality. In fact the fourth volume, Taran Wanderer, is one of the best books I've ever read, in any genre, for any age group. It's just a superbly beautiful, wise, touching coming of age story. A true golden little miracle of a book.
Which is exactly why I think it's a bad idea to introduce youd children to "books with apps". Even if we can't keep them entirely away from all the new gadgets, we can teach them that some things exist separately from those gadgets.

But what you forget is that most of the western world adults have now head their heads removed and a smart phone placed in the vacant spot. The only way to get the message across would be to put it in an app for them to stare at vacuously on the smart phone. Its a viscous circle.

So the book obviously tells a linear story.
The accompanying i-pad game allows kids to interactively go back through scenes in said
story and try different paths the story could've taken?

Choose-your-own-story books have existed for quite a while. I remember Donald Duck pocket books that every once in a while asked what the characters should do and had a text box with "If they do A, go to page X. If they do B, go to page Y".

The main problem I see with this idea is that tablet based AR is cumbersome. Both tablets and books have the benefit that you can use them in various positions. Forcing the book to lay flat on a table and point a tablet at it "just so" will get tiring very quickly.

I see nothing particularly bad in a companion app to a book, or in a book that's presented as an app (I think that gamebooks in particular are much better in app form), but this particular use strikes me as having a "cool" factor for a minute or two that quickly fades away to reveal the uselessness.