Puppet Book

Puppet Book is a digital storytelling system that integrates real-time puppetry into a digital storybook format to enhance the narrative experience for both parents and children. Utilizing a back-of-device interface attached to a tablet PC, the system allows parents to manipulate digital characters' mouths, arms, and whole-body movements using their fingers while reading aloud. This hidden interaction channel is designed to maintain the "magical" illusion of characters moving automatically with the narration, minimizing visual distractions for the child. The final interface configuration combines tactile silicon rubber buttons for discrete actions and a thumb-slide joystick for fluid whole-body motion to optimize expressiveness while maintaining a low task workload. A user study involving 11 parent-child groups demonstrated that the interface motivates parents to participate more actively in storytelling and significantly increases children's concentration and reading motivation. Puppet Book demonstrates the potential of leveraging secondary input channels to transform passive digital consumption into an interactive, shared social activity.