Horse Magic is the first book-app in an original series about three girls and the very unusual horse who appears in the barn one day and takes them on undreamed-of adventures. Written by Cathy Hapka, the author of many well loved children’s books, Horse Magic uses innovative parallax scrolling to create beautifully illustrated, moving environments for the story.
The iPad book-app integrates magical digital experiences into the text so the reader never leaves the story!
- Rain spatters the page.
- The gray gelding Magic appears and disappears.
- Words prance off the page to the sound of hoofbeats.
- Words travel through a flowing stream.
- And much more…
Horse Magic is all about reading—it’s not a movie or a cartoon or a game. Thanks to technology, this imaginative reading adventure takes place in magical spaces, with beautiful waving grasses, deep forests, rushing brooks and ancient stone walls. Every place in the story comes to life vividly.
Horse Magic is a great read—more than 6,000 words of page-turning adventure. It’s also a deeply interactive experience filled with the sights and sounds of the story. The combination makes Horse Magic irresistible.
Who Made This Book-App?
Bookerella
This unique book-app was created by a small army of designers, technologists, photographers, artists and more under the direction of Bookerella, a small company in New York City that specializes in children’s literature, both traditional and digital. Bookerella’s leader, Ellen Jacob, has overseen the creation of literally hundreds of kids’ books, including Maria Shriver’s children’s books and a major series of nonfiction books for HarperCollins in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution.
Learn more about Bookerella
Story Worldwide
For this book-app, Bookerella partnered with Story Worldwide, a unique, content-focused ad agency with advanced storytelling and app-making skills. Story specializes in multi-channel publishing, producing content—information and entertainment—for many of the world’s leading brands. But no advertiser participated in the making of Horse Magic. Story joined in for the thrill of helping create an entirely new kind of iPad book-app and to showcase the use of advanced digital tools in presenting information in wonderful and captivating ways.
Learn more about Story
Meet the Author
Cathy Hapka has published numerous books for children and young adults, many about horses. She has contributed to several popular series, including The Saddle Club and Chestnut Hill series. A lifelong horse lover, she rides several times each week. Magic, the horse in this story, is based on a very special lesson horse she once knew named Lance. Cathy currently keeps two horses on her small farm in Pennsylvania, along with several goats, a small flock of chickens, and too many cats. In addition to writing and riding, she enjoys animals, reading, gardening, music, and travel.
