Animated Storybooks

Hey everyone,

I spent some time playing the other night in preparation for a reading event and have discovered the joy of exporting a Pages with animated GIFs as an ePub to created story books with moving pictures. This could be a fabulous addition to a creative writing/storybook writing project.

What I did:

1. I app smashed Canva and Pages to make pages for the story which included text alongside an animated GIF (I made on Canva but could easily be made on Keynote too) related to the story. This bit took the longest.

   

Screen shot of Pages app showing how text boxes have been layered over GIF.

2. Exported the finished storybook Pages as an ePub.

 

Collection of screenshots showing the exporting process.

3. Opened in Apple Books et voila the animated GIFs played automatically and displayed a beautiful moving page.

 

GIF showing the book open in Apple Books.

I have attached a copy of the experimental ePub I created using All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury as inspiration in my playing - if you open in Apple Books you'll see the full effect!

A short word of caution:

Exporting to ePub in Pages crashed a few times as the file was so big so it might be an ideas to check your iPads and Pages apps are up to date and guide students to keep files reasonable size. As always test the tech yourself first before using with learners - especially if you're using a managed device!

 

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All Comments

Posted on March 22, 2023

Loved the book I would love to see the pages and how you put it together. I would love to have it read to me. So maybe adding a recorded reading of the book. Great job it’s amazing.

Posted on March 22, 2023

Thanks Nora, adding a voice recording is a great shout. They also play really well in ePubs on Apple Books.

Posted on March 23, 2023

This is a really dope idea! I can't wait to try this with a class.

Posted on March 23, 2023

I absolutely LOVE this idea! What an engaging way to help students identify and create imagery to align with a story they're reading in class. Thanks so much for sharing!

Posted on March 23, 2023

That's for adding this. I was just thinking about using keynote for mine because keynote is a favorite but it's great to see a pages example!

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