(BOSTON) Boston-based educational media developer and publisher FableVision has unveiled its first digital "talking book" title made accessible with DAISY 2.02 technology (Digital Accessible Information System).

Released in collaboration with CAST, a not-for profit education research and development organization, children's book author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds wrote and illustrated The City Garden for free as a way to support the growing DAISY movement. Reynolds says, "DAISY is a platform we believe in - with a powerful new way to "hear" what you are reading with a real human voice Ð and we want to help promote its widespread adoption." The City Garden can be read by any DAISY 2.02 reader including CAST's newly released eReader 3.0™.

CAST's eReader 3.0, is the first text-to-speech tool to use both synthetic speech and human recorded voice to navigate a wide range of digital educational content and provides critically needed reading supports for young readers with print based disabilities. CAST has partnered with FableVision to help accelerate DASIY 2.02 content development for blind, visually-impaired, and struggling readers. The CAST eReader was originally developed in 1995 and is now used by over 80,000 students and adults to support reading of word processing, HTML and DAISY 2.02 documents.

Click here to read about and download the CAST eReader and The City Garden.