Barnes & Noble has released its first original NOOK Kids Read and Play e-book for NOOK Color and NOOK Tablet: a musical day-at-the-beach adventure entitled Party Day by wildly popular children’s singer-songwriter Laurie Berkner. Since its release on December 15, Party Day, which retails for $9.99, has "performed very well" in terms of sales, says Kevin O’Connor, B&N’s director of children’s content, business development, and acquisitions. E-mail blasts, social media outreach, and a feature in USA Today helped give the title a pre-holiday boost. Berkner’s well-established following is a help as well. "Laurie has great support from the mass media and her power with moms is incredible," says O’Connor.

"I had worked with Laurie before, at her record label Razor & Tie, and I had seen how she connects with kids and families and paints a picture with her music,” O’Connor explains, of the appeal of tapping Berkner for the project. "I approached her manager, John Waldman, and her literary agent, Jill Grinberg, and suggested there were a couple of things we might do together." When O’Connor saw the music video work already completed for the song Party Day on the Laurie Berkner Band’s DVD of the same name (featuring artwork by Julia Woolf), he believed it would be a great fit for B&N’s proprietary e-book format.

"Part of the NOOK brand promise is to create a great family reading experience," O’Connor says. "Everything we’ve done is designed to let the story be the star," he adds. "It’s important to us that it not be 'app-like.' When it comes to reading a story we want to enhance the experience, not hijack the experience."

In addition to music, animations, and six drag-and-drop and find-and-touch activities, O’Connor points to a particular feature on the NOOK Tablet that allows customers to use the device’s built-in microphone to create up to five different narrations of Party Day—be it a parent or grandparent

reading for a child, or employing it for "the special way a child tells a story back to the family." O’Connor credits Wendy Bronfin, B&N’s senior director of digital product management, for developing such distinguishing features that will work throughout the platform and prove attractive to both consumers and any publishing partners.

O’Connor declined to share information about any potential future original NOOK Kids Read and Play titles, but noted that since B&N has experienced success thus far, the company certainly hopes to increase kids’ content and build the overall NOOK Kids library.