A news app specifically designed for kids. Each day, 5 new articles are posted with topics ranging from human interest (it's right before Halloween as I'm writing this review and today's top story is about a candy maker) to world news (there's also an article about the presidential election in Argentina). When you click on a story, you can read the text in English, Spanish, French or Arabic or have the text read to you by a native speaker of that language. There's also a related video, slideshow, an additional fact related to the article and a suggested action you can take to learn more or to respond to the news item. You can also click on a globe in the corner to see where on a world map this story is happening (and find out how to say "hello" in the local language or dialect). As if that weren't enough content, there's also a "games" section of the app where kids can put together a puzzle of a photo related to one of the news stories, play a robot-building word game similar to "hangman" or answer trivia questions about events that happened on this date in history. Kids can also write messages to the app creator, Russ, in the "newsroom as well as send him drawings created in the app and he'll respond. Users can also adjust the complexity of the text by choosing K-2, 3-4 or grades 5+ in the settings. There's also a tab titled "upset by the news?" that addresses how the news can sometimes be upsetting and how we can respond. This app has a ton of content (possibly the games page is overkill, really) and everything I read seemed very age appropriate and kid-friendly. I am very impressed with the multilingual options, I just wish the translations were also available for the video, slideshow and fact/act. The first month of use is free and after that there's an option to subscribe (with monthly, 6-month or 12-month options) and you can cancel at any time. There's also an educator's version and a school version (it's unclear to me what the difference is between those two) but if you need the app to be available without a subscription, those are worth looking into. I believe they also have teacher's guides in addition to the rest of the content mentioned here. It is completely ad-free and has no direct link to social media.
