Every person over the age of twenty has stopped and realized at some point that this new generation of tots has never known a world without smart phones. In fact, the babies being born this instant will never know a world without Siri sassing them, a world without DVR, a world without those embarrassing giant sticks that people attach to their phones to optimize their selfie-taking on their travels. It makes sense that, with the changing of the times, our choice in children's literature also needs to adapt. Hence the update to If You Give A Mouse a Cookie, Ann Droyd's If You Give A Mouse An iPhone, narrated by Fred Armison.
I am not so far removed from the Dark Age of No Smart Phones that I can't still very clearly remember my own parents reading the original version of the story, and its counterpart If You Give A Moose A Muffin. But this update is both hilarious and a little too relevant. Ann Droyd (no, sadly that is not her real name) tells the story of Applesauce the mouse, who is so absorbed by a smart phone that he misses everything going on around him. All sorts of fun shenanigans ensue, including Applesauce letting all the animals out of the zoo, falling off a rollercoaster and accidentally riding a dolphin to a remote island, none of which he actually realizes until the phone finally dies.
This eerily close-to-home story comes on the heels of other children's book parodies like Droyd's Goodnight iPad and Adam Mansbach's Go The Fuck To Sleep . It's a strange new world that modern parents are navigating with all this tech, and while we're all scrambling with long-term studies and health implications and trying in vain to shove children out the door to experience some nature, it's a welcome relief to have somebody poke fun at it all. You can listen to Fred Armison's narration here:
Image: Amazon
