Behind the Australian app developer Slap Happy Larry is Lynley Stace, the author and illustrator of sophisticated original stories for tweens and teens. In "The Artifacts, (Gr 4-9), 13-year old Asaf is a collector—of caterpillars, and jars, baubles, and objects that others have discarded. When his family moves and intentionally leaves his treasures behind, it's words and ideas he begins to accumulate. Her latest app, "Midnight Feast" (Gr 6 Up) is the story of Roya, of a young girl living in a future world, who escapes the grim reality of food shortages and drought through her imagination. Both stories are haunting tales that use color, music (Chris Hurn), sound, and interactivity (Dan Hare) to great effect. They are also terrific choices for classroom discussion. You have illustrated both of your stories. Do you consider yourself an artist or writer foremost? I consider myself a writer. That said, I spend a lot more hours illustrating than writing words. In picture books the words and illustration work in tandem, whereas in story apps there’s that third element of interactivity. Each of these three things depends upon the others to work, so I should probably consider myself a ‘storyteller’. There aren't many original story apps created for tweens and teens...Why this audience? I didn’t write The Artifacts with an age range in mind. When I wrote Midnight Feast I had a better idea of who might be interested in hi-lo reading material. It just so happens that teachers have been looking for illustrated stories which interest an older age group.  Even for fluent older readers, short works are useful for introducing or reviewing various concepts in a short space of time. Short texts can introduce nonfiction topics, or can serve as an introduction to novels with similar or contrasting themes. While The Artifacts and Midnight Feast are very different from each other, in both you so clearly capture the interior lives of your adolescent protagonists. Are you in touch with that time of your life? What was it like? It only dawned on me recently that maybe there are adults in the world who don’t remember much of adolescence. I remember the feelings very well. Like Asaf and Roya, I had a rich inner life. At around age 12 the world opens up but closes behind us in equal measure. This fascinates me.

Interior screen from 'The Midnight Feast' (SlapHappyLarry) Stace

Your stories are moody and dark—The Artifacts features a teen whose parents are fairly clueless about the person he has become, and in Midnight Feast a future world's food shortage plays a major role. While there are plenty of dark picture books about—take the original Grimms’ fairy tales for starters—there are some heavy ideas specific to modern times, and those are ripe for exploration in this medium. The Artifacts explores a very modern dilemma, applicable to those of us living in rich countries: How best to deal with the over-accumulation of material goods? As for Midnight Feast, food shortage has long featured in traditional tales (take Hansel and Gretel, for instance) but despite the breadth of modern education and round-the-clock world news, it’s perhaps easier than ever to ignore inequalities. The very screens that allow us to see the rest of the world in all its unequal glory can function equally as distractions.

Interior screen from 'The Artifacts' (SlapHappyLarry) Stace

The interactivity in both stories is great, but not always intuitive, was that intentional? We include some deliberate ‘easter eggs’, that’s true. We aim to reward re-reading. The balance between intuitiveness and exploratory tapping is critical, because we want to discourage the touchscreen equivalent of keyboard-mashing. That would work against the dreamy, slow nature of the stories. With heavy interactivity you inevitably create a work of metafiction, in which the readers never forget that they are Using A Touchscreen Device. Although Midnight Feast is very slightly metafictive in the way it asks readers to examine their own use of screens, we aim for full story immersion. So our story apps are not challenging in a gaming sort of way. In order to advance the plot, readers can tap any part of the screen. This should feel no more intrusive than turning a page. Have you ever been a teacher? On your website there is so much useful material for teachers on Midnight Feast, including a discussion of the choices that went into your work. I did teach high school Japanese and English in New Zealand during my twenties. I was a little hesitant to release those close-reading notes, which I wrote as part of my own planning process. In the end I have to trust they’ll be used as I mean them to be used—as no more than an insight into the kind of thinking that goes into a picture book. There are as many interpretations of a story as there are readers, so I hope my own intentions for the story don’t end up being authoritative simply because I’m the author. Eds. Note: The Midnight Feast was selected as one of SLJ's "Top 10 Apps" of 2013. For additional SLJ app reviews, visit our Touch and Go webpage.