Magic Story Maker app for iPhone and iPad

Kids! We love them, but theyre tiny monsters and we are slaves to them.

We all know how boring it is to read them the same story over and over. But after an hour of reciting the sounds farm animals make, were the ones falling asleep, and theyre awake as a fighter pilot whose had coffee thrown in his face.

Fortunately, now theres a solution. Magic Story Maker.

With a title designed to fool your child into thinking its for them, this magical app combines news stories we want to read - sports, science, travel - with colorful images designed to excite your tiny, gurgling offspring.

As they excitedly reach for the iPad, theyve already fallen into your trap - for how better to put a child to sleep than reading them the latest movements of the Dow Jones?

The app comes with three built in themes tailor-made for your childs predictable tastes - "Jungle Jimmy", "Wheres That Pig", and "Princess Awesome Saves the Day" - with more available for 99 cents. While the stories are delightfully repetitive for children, they are different every time for you.

Plus youll be doing your child a favor. Research indicates that reading articles such as these helps build vocabulary, which leads to higher IQs later in life (aka early retirement for you). It makes sense - the child who is read science news every day is going to be much smarter than the one who learns that a cow goes moo 8,000 times in a year.

Featuring fresh content from USA TODAYs Top stories, Sports, Life, Travel, Tech and Money sections, updated daily. Violent content is filtered out by default, and you pick which stories to read so you can make sure theyre appropriate for your kids.

And remember, if you dont read anything else to your kids, they wont know what a "real" kids story is like until youre out of the "danger zone" of having to read one to them.

Happy Parenting!

Created by Brian Fountain and Toby Muresianu