Disney Story Central is a Great Resource for Summer Reading

Kate and I at The Walt Disney Studios. What an icon! Both of them!

We are big fans of anything Disney! I just love how Walt Disney had a dream and vision and created one of the most amazing amusement parks and companies ever! At a conference in April I heard about the upcoming Walt Disney four-hour documentary that’s part of PBS’ American Experience series that will air September 14 and 15 and will talk about the man and his extraordinary vision. At this event, I heard how he “pitched” Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to his illustrators over a two hour period by acting out each scene because he needed to have them on board to create this movie! I have enjoyed all of these classic movies (Bambi was my favorite – what about you?) and kids and kids-at-heart can enjoy these classics along with new releases at Disney Story Central!

About Disney Story Central:

Disney Story Central is the largest collection of Disney digital stories, featuring a wide array of Disney stories and characters that kids and families know and love. The cross-platform experience is available via iPhone and iPad app, tablet-optimized website and Video on Demand (AT&T U-Verse). It is designed to encourage a lifetime appreciation for reading and gives families the ability to choose what reading experience the would prefer – whether it be through an annual subscription service or one a-la-carte using the Disney Book Tokens, which would make a wonderful birthday gift by the way!

Download the free app and you immediately get two new books!

How It Works:

There are customizable bookshelves for each member of the family with personalized reading recommendations. The “Browse By Character” carousel lets families easily find books starring their favorite character, spanning all Disney Franchises, including Disney Princess, Disney Classics, Frozen, Doc McStuffins, Cars, and more. Since we both love Cinderella (I think we have seen it about 5 times in the theater now) we browsed for books about Cinderella though they will make personalized book recommendations. Character-driven navigation make it easy to find new books. Stars, Ranks, and Trophies reward kids for reading and encourage them to keep it up. There is a variety of content for pre-readers, speed readers, and everyone in-between.

I love that it is accessible at home or on the go. I set up a little reading nook for my daughter in her Teepee in our backyard and she has been spending time out there enjoying her favorite Disney stories. I plan to be on top of that this summer as I don’t want her to fall behind in her skills. The Disney Story Central list of over 100 Disney titles will definitely keep us busy this summer!

Subscription

The subscription service gives kids unlimited access to Disney Story Central’s expansive library of books for $7.99 a month.

A La Carte

The Disney Book Token system helps parents empower their kids to pick out the books they WANT to read, allowing them to build their own collection of stories, featuring the characters they love.
Tokens work like currency, in which one token is worth one book and are used to download books

About the Disney ‘Mid-Summer Light Reads’ Campaign:

Starting today, June 11th and running through August 13th, the Disney “Mid-Summer Light Reads’ Campaign will keep kids excited about reading! The campaign will promote weekly summer reading themes featuring selected Disney titles. The kids can even earn badges and unlock FREE Books weekly via the Disney Story Central app! I really like the feature that allows you to see how many books (and pages) they have read, how many days they’ve been reading. Kids love getting “rewards” and this feature really encourages them to keep on reading! Plus, it will be hard for them to fib about how much they are actually reading (mine has been known to do that) with this feature. Just saying!

You can really get into the excitement by hosting Disney-themed parties to go along with the summer reading themes! It can be a larger scale event like what we did at our last Disney party where we had the kids dress up as their favorite Disney character to something as simple as making some treats that go along with that weeks summer reading theme like these Mickey Mouse cupcakes!