Living Tales
An interactive picture book that comes alive as a parent reads aloud: speech is recognized right on the device and the illustrations move at the right moment. Ten tales in Russian and English; an iPhone app on the way, with a web demo.
I was reading a bedtime book to my son and thought: what if the pictures reacted to my voice? Living Tales is that idea grown into a product. You read a fairy tale aloud, the app follows the text, and as soon as you reach a key line the picture comes alive: the bun rolls away exactly when you finish the sentence. Speech recognition runs entirely on the device, so the voice never leaves it. There are ten tales in Russian and English, from Kolobok and The Turnip to The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood; Kolobok is free. Without a microphone the tale still works: tap the underlined words and turn the pages by hand.
What it does
- 01Voice-Driven Animations
- The picture follows your reading: each key phrase triggers its own animation the moment you say it.
- 02Fully On-Device
- Speech is recognized on the device (sherpa-onnx in the app, Vosk in the web demo); audio never leaves it.
- 03Page Vocabulary
- Recognition is constrained to the words of the current page, which makes it far more accurate for a child's reading pace.
- 04Works Without a Microphone
- Tap the underlined words to trigger the same animations and turn the pages by hand.
- 05Recorded Readings
- A parent's reading can be saved on the device, so the child can listen to it again with the same animations.
Progress
- 01 Idea & Prototype Concept born from reading with my son; first working prototype built in an evening.
- 02 Kolobok The first tale with 14 illustrated pages and voice-triggered animations is live.
- 03 Ten Tales, Two Languages Ten classic tales in Russian and English, each with its own illustrated pages.
- 04 iPhone App Flutter app with on-device recognition, reading recordings and in-app purchases; preparing for the App Store.