How This Reading Service Works
This once-upon-a-time library houses a whopping 1000+ books, with more being added every week. FarFaria encourages kids to read by presenting faraway places such as FairyTale Forest, Classic Groove, Fable Hills, and others. In addition to themes, the books are also categorized by five levels of reading ability from pre-readers up to fluent readers and they are aligned to Common Core. After finishing a book, the service recommends others.
The Good and the Bad
The books in this collection are all read aloud, with words highlighting as read. It also has a separate section for reading Spanish language books. The search function is particularly helpful with the ability to search by title, genre, or keyword. And the personal recommendations make it easy to jump into the next book. We also like that some books end by asking questions about new vocabulary introduced in the book.
Unlike some of the other book library services, FarFaria's books don't contain animations, and there aren't hotspots for kids to touch to trigger interactivity.
The Pricing
You can read one free book a day from this app. But if you want to use it like a library so that you have unlimited books to read, you will need to pay $4.99/mo, $39.99/year, or $74.99 for a lifetime subscription.
Why choose this book service?
FarFaria has the most books at the low cost. You can carry 40 downloaded books at a time. The books are sorted by reading level and interest, which is helpful in finding the right book for your child. Many of the books feature diverse characters. However, these books don't come with any bells and whistles -- this is a collection of static books that read to your child. It most closely mirrors checking books out of a library, and even identifies the ones that are most popular and newest.
This updated FarFaria Storybooks app review was written by Jinny Gudmundsen. The original review was published on August 9, 2013.
All tech products are judged on a five star scale by looking at the following factors: fun, education, ease of use, value, and technical.
