In a previous post, I talked about my favorite Christmas books, including 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, which my dad would traditionally read to me and my sister before bed on Christmas Eve.  Considering the fond memories I have surrounding this classic Christmas story, I was thrilled to find a free storybook app of the 1912 edition of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas available for the Nook.

I love to see ebooks and book apps that digitalize original (or at least old) illustrations.  In this case, the 1912 edition was illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, a well-known illustrator whose work appeared in magazines and children's books.  I have several children's books illustrated by her, and I love her work, so I was happy to see it had been immortalized for new generations in this free app.

The app itself is nothing fancy -- it doesn't read to you, like the Peter Rabbit app I reviewed last week, it doesn't play any background music, and there aren't any interactive images.  It's about as close to an ebook it can get and still be called a storybook app.  But I don't mind, because the pages are laid out nicely, and the images are preserved in vivid color.  Each page has a few more lines of verse, along with original illustrations from the 1912 edition, laid out to look like they are meant to be viewed on the Nook.

As you can tell, I am becoming quite enamored of storybook apps.  The more I explore them, the more I think both ebooks and apps do a great job of entertaining today's technology-enamored kids, while still maintaining the importance of reading!