Franklin AnyBook Reader - 60 Hour Edition (DRP-4000)

Last month, a new product from Franklin Electronics called AnyBook Reader was launched. It is aimed at the working, busy or traveling parent, far-away grandparent, or any other long distance relatives, who want to bond with a child even when they are apart. It's an interactive reading device that allows you to read & record any book in your personal library in your own voice and then allows your toddler (who may or may not know how to read yet) to follow along with their favorite books and your voice, so that you're reading the book instead of the Nanny!

AnyBook can be purchased through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. There is a 15-hour version ($39.99), and a 60-hour version ($59.99).

Ok, now that you have seen the press release let me tell you all about it.

AnyBook comes with a selection of blank stickers for recording your voice. There are also stickers that have sounds recorded in them if appropriate to the book (dog, firetruck, rain, crying, etc). The stickers are made to be removed and won't ruin your pages. You can even re-record on them or order more if you run out.

You touch the button on the pen to start the record mode. You hear a few beeps and it is ready for you to record. That's it! So easy!

Last week I quickly and easily recorded two books so that I could carry it everywhere with me. My first stop was the school where I was meeting with my son's teachers and therapists.

I opened the first book and put the reader to the sticker. They heard the book being read through the pen and then I opened the next book to show them how the reader will read anything I record into the sticker. They all looked at me in amazement.

I was asked, "how do you get the recording". I explained that I touch the pen to a sticker that I place on the page, the pen counts down and I record the page into the pen by reading. They actually thought it was Ruby on the Max and Ruby book so they were at first confused. When I told them it was me doing characters that is when they were all amazed.

Everyone stated the same thing; they have seen other readers out there but you have to literally buy books from the maker of the pen. That is what makes this pen so much better! You can literally read/record your children's favorite books and they can hear you read to them anytime.

It is the easiest thing and so personal. I love this idea for military families especially but I think this is great for anyone. Perhaps your children don't get to see their grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends often. They visit you once or twice a year. They could read a book or two for the child into the pen and your child can hear them anytime they want.

Another friend had asked about the stickers and if they can put on other things. Sure, why not. This got me thinking how great this would be for a baby learning speech or perhaps someone trying to learn another language. Place the sticker on anything, record what it is and the person can actually learn speech.

What a great gift idea. Imagine a child on your Christmas list opens a book of books with the pen that you have already recorded the books on! This pen says "love".

Finally! ... a reader that is not limited to buying those special reading systems and the accessories for them. This is like the reading pens, but you can use the books you already have or would rather have for your children AND you record your own voice into it. So, you can personalize the story using your kids' names or by using your own character voices. It comes with sheets of removable stickers that are used to identify your recording. For example, you adhere a sticker on each page of your book. Then, you turn the reader on, touch the sticker with the reader to activate the sticker and then you record your voice reading the page. It also comes with an assortment of pre-recorded stickers with sounds on them (animals, phone ringing, clapping, etc.) to add to the story. My kids have fun with it. You can get creative with it, too. I can totally see myself eventually using this for their school items, crafts, albums, etc.

Buy Franklin AnyBook Reader - 60 Hour Edition (DRP-4000) Now

Now there are not many nights that I miss storytime with my boys before bed, but there are the few nights I do and there are times when they want to read a book by themselves. I am not saying there is a total substitution for a parent reading to their child, but their is a device that can now help out a little. The AnyBook Reader by Franklin Electronic Publishers is a device that allows a parent (or another significant adult) to read a book into a microphone-like device and record themselves reading the book. What is nice about the AnyBook Reader is you can use it with any book in your child's library and you can use it with multiple books at one time! (There is a 15 hour and 60 hour version.) You place a small sticker on the corner of the book pages and record each page individually, then your child can tap the sticker and hear you read the story! So no more buying special books and/or cartridges, just buy new stickers when you run out. The stickers use a special glue that won't damage a book and can be removed at any time. A pack of stickers is $9.99 and contains 10 sheets of ready-to-program stickers, each containing 20 stickers for a total of 200 stickers. You'll also get 4 new sheets of sound-effect stickers (80 more stickers).

Setting up a recording and deleting a recording is very easy, almost too easy that I thought for sure I was forgetting something! The stickers are easy to remove but unless your child really picks at them they should stay on just fine. There is a little feedback in the microphone so make sure the room you do the recording in is very quiet (like naptime or after bedtime!) I really though like this idea and it is so easy and quick to do. I could have a basic book done in minutes from adding the stickers to the pages to recording it. What makes this product really unique though is that it is your own voice that you are recording, so not a strangers or a robot voice. This would be especially great for a grandparent to record (and easy for them to use), a deployed military parent or other family member. My sons got a kick out of hearing my voice and now its funny they look for the white stickers in all their books! The AnyBook reader may be a little bit more upfront than other readers (about $60) but its your voice and its any book your child wants! Really you could use these stickers on anything you want to record a message on the possibilities are endless!

Read Best Reviews of Franklin AnyBook Reader - 60 Hour Edition (DRP-4000) Here

"AnyBook reader uses a simple touch, record, and playback process. A special optical reader, built into the tip, reads unique codes imbedded in the designs of the stickers included with AnyBook reader. It's similar to the way a scanner at the grocery store reads barcodes. Each sticker code is unique. When a voice recording is associated with a sticker placed on a page, Anybook-Reader stores the recording and "remembers" which sticker has been associated with the recording. Touch the sticker again and AnyBook reader plays back the correct recording."

It takes a little time to get this going, but once it's done, your child can have a book 'read' to him any time he wants!!! It's easy for my kids to use and they love being able to play with it on their own. They even like to just record their own voices on the reader.

If your child doesn't know how to read yet, the Anybook reader won't help them follow along. It isn't like a tag reader where you run the pen across a word and it 'reads it'. You simple touch the reader to the sticker and then the whole page is read to your child. But if your child can read even a little bit, this Anybook reader will be a helpful teaching tool.

It comes with a bunch of stickers, and you can always record over a sticker if you are done using it in a certain book. But you can also buy more stickers if you don't want to record over any of them. The stickers don't damage our books and we can easily remove them if needed.

This is a fun tool.

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I can't believe I haven't heard of this product before, it's genius! My son is learning to read and constantly wants my husband and I to read books to him. We were happy to do so, until my son got turned on to the 100+ page per book "Captain Underpants" series. It's a cute series (we bought them all), but requires quite the time commitment to read through, and my son wants to read them constantly. I searched online for "reading pen," and found this. All the other systems required special books, so they were not Captain Underpants-friendly.

To record, you turn on the pen, hold the power button for 3 seconds to go into "recording mode," touch the sticker, then hold the volume-up button while you record that page (I only put stickers on the left side and read both pages to conserve stickers). Then you let go of the button, put the sticker on the next page, and repeat. Then hold the power button 3 seconds again when you're done recording to exit recording mode. Very simple. Directions for deleting recordings are equally simple, and the stickers can be removed/changed so you can move them if your child gets sick of a particular book. The stickers are reasonably priced, though, so I already ordered some extras. Only the white ones and pictures of faces can hold recordings, the others contain sound effects that you can add as desired. They seem to be easy to move/remove from pages as the company claims.

The only cons: the sound quality isn't great, especially when you're reading louder or making loud sound effects. It helps if you don't hold the pen too close to your mouth while you're talking. Even then, not super quality, but my son doen't seem to mind. When you're holding the button while recording, sometimes it "rocks" back and forth a little which results in a loud clicking sound on the recording. This is the biggest problem I've encountered so far.

Overall, it's a great value. When you consider that it costs $25-30 for those "record your own" Hallmark books that contain only one story, and you can record about 10 with this depending on length of the book (it comes with 22 sheets of 20 recordable stickers, I think), it's a much better deal. When you add the fact you can use it on any of your child's favorite books, it's a slam dunk. It's also a great gift idea for a child that can't yet read or has parents who sometimes travel. A+++!

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