Bottom Line: Ambitious and educational in nature, this app may be a little too explicit for the under-twelve age group and just a tad creepy, since six-year-old Clementine is learning about sex by taking photos of her parents having sex without their permission. Users can also earn a “tour guide” badge, complete with a picture of sperm, by leading the sperm to Mom’s egg. This is a hands-on experience that needs adult supervision. **WARNING: The app contains some rather explicit illustrations, some of which are reprinted in this review. Watch out for little eyes reading over your shoulder!**
If you'd like to download Clementine Wants to Know: Where Do Babies Come From? (iPad/iPhone, $2.99), please use this handy dandy link:
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The app, by developer Puddle Tap Publishing, opens to a beautiful animation of Clementine excitedly 
telling her trusty camera, Zoom-Zoom, that she is going to have a little brother. She has a lot of questions, including whether her parents will still love her. She also wonders where babies come from. Zoom-Zoom explains that babies come from love, and then users help Clementine find loving couples in the park. Finding the couples earns the user a matchmaker badge. This activity utilizes the motion of the device for play — users must lift and turn the device to imitate framing a shot in order to find the couples. As a reviewer, I visit and fiddle with apps several times before writing, and this activity made me long for a swiping option so the device could stay stationary. The app is designed to be used without adults navigating, so the swiping option could also save some potential device droppage. Droppage is a word, by the way — I added it to spell check.
The next section of the app dives into more detail about men and women and their child-making anatomy. Users are shown a man and woman clothed; then, with Zoom-Zoom’s wondervision, clothes are removed and Mom and Dad are shown in all of their naked glory with the option to “zoom in” for a closer look. While zoomed in, children are able to learn names for some of the anatomy and other parts 
involved in the process, such as penis, vagina, vulva, sperm and eggs. Everything is cleanly illustrated and labeled. Clementine still doesn't understand how a man and woman make a baby, so she and Zoom-Zoom open Mom and Dad’s door and see them under the blankets. Zoom-Zoom explains that sex is “when a man and woman hug and cuddle very closely and the man puts his penis inside the woman.” Zoom-zoom and Clementine also use wondervision to see through the blanket at how Mom and Dad are entangled, and then little Clementine gets to zoom in and help guide sperm to the egg. Successful fertilization (don’t worry, Dad’s sperm is strong) gets users the tour guide badge. Thankfully, Zoom-Zoom reminds everyone that sex is something adults do in private and they shut the door.
After fertilization, Clementine gets to look inside Mom’s belly with wondervision to see her baby brother 
grow. All nine months are represented and children can go forward or backward to see the baby’s growth. After the ninth month, the big day arrives and users help guide the family car to the hospital, where Mom will give birth. Successfully reaching the hospital results in a safe driver badge. This activity, like many of the interactive options, feels like an afterthought. Users put their fingers in front of the car and stop at the hospital.
It’s delivery time and Clementine gets to use wondervision to pull back the hospital curtain and blanket to see Mom, Dad and Doctor (standing like he’s waiting to catch a baseball). Wondervision also shows Clementine how her baby brother is inside her mom’s belly. Users help Mom push by moving the baby and after three big pushes, baby brother Sebastian is born and users get to cut the cord. During all of the excitement, Zoom-Zoom explains everything that is happening and also explains how cutting the umbilical cord doesn’t hurt the baby. Users are given the doctor’s helper badge.
Zoom-Zoom explains to Clementine how Sebastian will need a lot of extra attention, but her parents love them both the same and one day she and her brother will become wonderful friends. Clementine, with help from the app’s users, gets to comfort a crying Sebastian by finding what he needs: a diaper, rattle or bottle. Once he is happy, users are given the babysitter badge, which completes the set of five.
In the afterword, there are three pictures of Clementine’s friends that explain different ways families are made: donor insemination, adoption and surrogacy. Although there are no interactive elements nor animations in this section, it was thoughtfully executed. Families are explained without any predisposed notions of correctness. Male partners, female partners and heterosexual couples are given equal mention.
The app is pretty to look at with its beautiful colors and sketched lines. The animations are smooth and I found no bugs after a recent update to the app. But I’m giving it just 3.5 stars for a couple of reasons: first, I’d like to see the developer give interactivity the same attention as appearance and content. Second, I was bothered from start to finish, not by the content, but by how it was presented. If 
it tells you anything, the developer says this app is for kids ages 5-12, but the App Store rates it as 12+ because of mild sexual content. That’s a pretty big disconnect for parents trying to decide if this app is for them or not. I get that sex education should be guided by a caregiver, so I can get over the discrepancy between Apple’s recommended age range and the developer’s. But that doesn’t solve my biggest problem with the app, which is its overall voyeuristic feel. A six-year-old girl takes her camera to the park, her parent’s bedroom, and the hospital to get private and up-close looks at everything from hugging to intercourse and childbirth? Even I was creeped out, and I’m a mom of three and one of the most open-minded people I know. The lovely professional voice actors and illustrations save this app from being downright weird, and also saved it from a lower rating. In case you haven’t already decided to do so, please view this app yourself before handing it to a small child to learn about the birds and the bees. Otherwise you might be startled one evening with a toy camera under your blanket.
***
Cynthia came out of review retirement to learn how babies are made. SmartAppsForKids.com was paid a priority review fee to complete this review in an expedited manner.
Comments