ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses digital book formats that benefit not only children’s meaning-making of narratives but also their enjoyment of literature. Current research suggests that interactivity in digital picture books is motivating but it often takes forms that may distract children from the storyline, thereby diminishing meaning-making. This article discusses the theoretical drivers of promising interactive designs (i.e., active processing, capacity theory, and distance theory) and multimedia learning principles that bring these theories into practice. The chapter presents promising interactive digital picture book affordances such as embodied action that prompts users to replicate the actions of the story’s characters, thus enabling young readers to empathize more with the characters. As high-quality apps with more complex interactivity become mainstays of picture book reading for the very young, new research should not focus solely on the interactivity of readily available commercial book apps, but on interactive book apps informed by findings from cognition and literacy sciences.
