WITCHEMINA

A good little witch leaves her spooky family to find happiness in this saccharine picture-book app.

Gentle Witchemina lives with her four spooky sisters in a gloomy swamp populated with odd creatures and menacing bare trees.  She "thinks differently, acts differently and has much different interests than her sisters," including baking cookies, drawing portraits of her friends and using good magic to try to turn weeds into flowers. When an unusual seed blows in on a gust of wind, Witchemina desperately tries to grow it into a flower. Discovering that sunshine is the only thing that will help, Witchemina moves to a sunny field near the swamp and builds her dream home and garden. The graphics are solid, although the bursts of colorful magic contrast jarringly with the background. The author's voiced narration only serves to enhance the overly sweet tone of the story. The writing is awkward, and the story is predictable and too good to be true. There are a few interactive "achievements" scattered on the pages for busy fingers, and puzzles are a nice addition (although there is no satisfying click or indicator when a piece is put into the right place).  

Clunky text and jarring effects in this cloying tale may have readers rooting for the weeds.