Amazon announced the release of Amazon Rapids, a reading application for children. The Amazon Rapids app allows users to read short stories written in a chat style that sees stories progress one message at a time.
The Amazon Rapids app offers hundreds of original illustrated short stories, and Amazon said “dozens” of new stories will be added to the platform every month. Stories are available in multiple genres including adventure, fantasy, humor, mystery, science fiction and sports.
As examples, one story may focus on a grandmother entering her granddaughter’s group chat, while another story focuses on a duck who is taking over a rooster’s duties on the farm, and so on. Each story is presented as a conversation between characters, which plays out one message at a time. The Amazon Rapids app includes a built-in glossary, as well as a “read to me” mode that allows the app to read stories aloud to children as they follow along.
Users can sign up for a subscription to Amazon Rapids at an introductory price of $2.99 per month, which gives children unlimited access to the platform’s stories. Users can also activate a two-week free trial here.
In a statement, Rohit Agarwal, general manager of Amazon K-12 education, commented:
Many kids already love using phones to chat with friends and family. We wanted to see what authors and illustrators could create with an app that made it easy to tell stories that way. We?re excited to shar...