Here's a story that can be used in a literacy lesson on prefixes, but as our reviewer notes, one-time around may be enough. The UnStealer (The Happy Dandelion, $3.99 in iOS and Android; Gr 2-4) flips storytelling expectations in a quirky tale of a mysterious thief who steals the prefix “un” from words. What at first appears to be an underhand act turns out to be a good deed, transforming unconfident, unhappy, and unsure feelings and behaviors into their positive opposites. The story, written and illustrated by Josh Wilson and Donna Wilson, features original artwork in bright primary colors and rich earthy tones. Each page showcases delightful animations: the UnStealer sweeps the Uns across the page, a clown’s bag of tricks is filled with spinning flowers, balloons pop, and clothes tumble out of a closet.

Interior screen 'The UnStealer') (The Happy Dandelion) Wilson

Jaunty music and two options greet users on the home page–“Go To” or “How To.” The “Go To” screen is filled with the thumbnails of individual app pages—a confusing start for the first-time viewer ready to dig in. The “How To” screen advises users to touch words in that appear in colors (to activate animations), but doing so on this screen brings users to the title page. Once inside the story, some of the text in pastel colors blends into the background and is difficult to read; on other screens the font size is too small. Overall, navigation is somewhat counter-intuitive and weakens the experience. While knowledgeable appsters will know to swipe the pages to move forward and easily find the embedded animations, unless they read the app's instructions they may have difficulty accessing the narration. The voice-over plays by tapping the first word on each screen but requires some precision to activate. Surprisingly, there’s no option for continuous narration . The app succeeds best in its colorful artwork and in some of its interactive elements (in particular viewers will enjoy dressing one of the characters), but it's unlikely children will return to the production more than once for them or for the original, but message-driven story.  A trailer is available.—Deborah Cooper, SUNY Cortland, NY For additional app reviews visit our Touch and Go web page.