FarFaria: Netflix for children's books

That's not Netflix for children's books. That's an app with 100 books in it (particular books that have been written for the app, not familiar children's books).

Now your local library... THAT is Netflix for children's books. Except that, unlike Netflix, it is free. At least for now... our library system is under attack and unless things change, free public libraries may not exist in a generation.

Really cool concept, good business model, well made app. Definitely recommended for any geeky parent with kids who wants to bring the modernity of 21st century technology into the multi-millenia old act of telling stories to the younger generation before the night falls.

That being said, their massive amount of content is produced by underpaying recent grads from top art schools (my girlfriend did some work for them). That way, they get extremely high quality illustration skills for an extremely low price.

I hope that situation will change soon— children oriented iPad apps are taking off, and high quality illustrations have a big role to play in that— I think parents appreciate the value in a finely drawn story. But yet illustrators are still very much underpaid, especially in contrast to the developers of these apps.

We are still doing the library for the young ones - I don't see myself wanting my offspring staring into the bright iPad screen all day reading or especially before nap and sleep at night when it can disrupt them.