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An app for kids developed in Dublin is top of the education charts in the App Store just days after its release.

There are few more competitive places than the world of apps on iTunes. With millions of apps out there, it is all too easy for an Irish app to get lost in the mix.

But now an app for kids, made in Dublin by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), has leapt to the top of the charts. Well, the education charts anyway.

Called Curious George At The Zoo, the app is designed to help children aged 3-5 to, according to the makers, “literacy, language development, social development, maths and the creative arts”. Sounds like we could do with a go of it ourselves.

Based on the famous Curious George books that are so popular in the US, the app has taken off and now sits top of the education charts. HMH’s Emmet O’Neill explained a bit more about the app when it launched this week.

“The tricky thing about Curious George is that the artwork style is very much based around watercolour, charcoal and paper – it has a very natural medium feel to it,” said O’Neill.

“We’d never really properly translated it across to any digital media. This was a perfect opportunity for us in using the iPad to bring out the original sensibility of the book but in a new, interactive way,” he said.

Anyway, it is available for free on iTunes until May, on iPhone and iPad, so if you have a few little ones running around the house, this should keep them amused so you can watch the sport in peace this afternoon while at the same time helping an Irish success story.