Tacky’s Christmas is a seasonal offering in the popular Tacky the Penguin series of books written by Helen Lester and illustrated by Lynn Munsinger, and brought to the app store by Oceanhouse Media.
The story has ‘read to me’, ‘read it myself’ and ‘autoplay’ options. The words are highlighted as the story is read and you can have objects labelled or words read by tapping on them.
The story tells the tale of Christmas in Nice Icy Land. The penguins are busy choosing and wrapping gifts. Sadly, in Nice Icy Land Santa doesn’t visit (you may need to explain to your children why Tacky is pretending to be Santa), so Tacky has volunteered to dress up as Santa. The friends are also busy making Christmas ornaments and singing carols when they realise there are no trees to hang their ornaments on. Tacky volunteers to help out by being both Santa and the tree (at the same time). As usual with Tacky, things don’t quite go to plan, but he ends up saving the day and everyone has a Happy Christmas. Tacky is an odd bird, but a nice bird to have around – especially at Christmas.
The illustrations are really beautifully done with bright cheerful colors contrasting to the white snow, and I love the constantly falling now and cheerful background music. The narrator does a great job of reading the story with enthusiasm, and the sound effects (especially the chattering penguins) add a nice touch. As with all the stories in the Tacky series this spreads a nice message – that it is OK to be different, and that even someone who appears “odd” can be a wonderful friend and good to have around. This is a nice addition to your book collection for Tacky fans.
