A child's forearms and hands hold a smartphone over a large open hardcover encyclopedia on a worn oak table; through the phone screen a photorealistic Tyrannosaurus rex strides across the table surface toward the viewer, casting a soft amber-lit shadow; afternoon window light pools across the open pages
The AR+ Encyclopedia Library for Ages 4–12

Real books. Living pages. A library that keeps growing.

Open a Neobook encyclopedia. Hold your phone above the page. Watch a Cretaceous predator claim the kitchen table as its territory.

No base unit. No serial number. No setup ritual. Every Neobook title is a precision-printed encyclopedia first and a living specimen second. The AR layer is always there when you want it, and the book is worth having when you don't.

Explore the Collection Physical books shipped to your door
Download the App Free Works on any iOS or Android device
4.8 stars across 2,400+ verified family reviews
Trusted by families in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada
Used in home classrooms across four countries
Available on iOS and Android
Expert-authored and curriculum-informed
Free companion app
Three steps. No instructions manual.

Open the book. Point the app. Watch the page come alive.

Every Neobook title works the same way, every time, on the device already charging on your counter.

  • No Bluetooth or Wi-Fi required once loaded
  • No proprietary base unit or hardware
  • No serial-number activation
See All Titles
A large hardcover children's encyclopedia lies open on a warm oak table; the illustrated double-page spread shows detailed dinosaur illustrations with visible paper grain and ink quality; warm natural window light rakes across the pages revealing texture
01

Choose your encyclopedia

Each Neobook title is a hardbound, expert-authored encyclopedia, illustrated with the same care as the natural-history volumes your parents kept on the shelf, and sturdy enough to survive the reading table.

The physical book, before any device appears

A hand holds a smartphone over an open illustrated encyclopedia; the phone screen shows a camera viewfinder framing the pages below, no digital overlay yet; a quiet moment before the experience begins; warm amber light falls across both book and hand
02

Open the Neobook app

The free companion app takes under two minutes to download on any iOS or Android phone or tablet. Open it, point the camera at any page marked with the AR symbol, and hold.

The moment before the specimen appears

A smartphone screen is filled with a photorealistic 3D diplodocus appearing to rise from the illustrated encyclopedia page beneath; the creature's long neck curves upward out of frame; a child's fingers are visible at the lower edge steadying the phone; warm amber glow surrounds the scene
03

The specimen arrives

A fully animated, three-dimensional creature, planet, or organism emerges from the illustrated page, moving, sounding, and responding to the book beneath it. The page is still there. The book is still the book. The science just became impossible to ignore.

A diplodocus, life-size relative to the page

The Neobook Archive, current acquisitions

Two flagship encyclopedias. Dozens of AR experiences. One growing library.

Each title in the archive is authored by subject specialists, reviewed for curriculum alignment, and built to hold a child's attention long after the first scan.

The Neobook Dinosaur Encyclopedia hardcover stands at a confident angle on a dark slate surface; dramatic raking sidelight reveals embossed cover illustration and gold foil spine detail; deep shadows give the book the weight of a natural-history archive specimen
Flagship Title Ages 5–12 Curriculum-aligned

Dinosaur Encyclopedia

Sixty-four pages of Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic field-specimen entries, illustrated with scientific accuracy, annotated for young readers, and unlocked by seventeen AR animations including a T-Rex, a Triceratops charge, and a full Brachiosaurus in overhead scope.

View the Dinosaur Encyclopedia
The Neobook Space Explorer hardcover stands at a confident angle on a deep navy lacquered surface; warm raking sidelight catches embossed cover detail and gold foil star-field illustration; the book reads as a beautiful object before a single page is opened
Ages 6–12

Space Explorer

From the surface of Mars to the outer edge of the observable universe, thirty-eight AR experiences across ninety-six pages, including an orbital view of Saturn's ring system and a to-scale model of the ISS deployed above your coffee table.

View Space Explorer
A smartphone screen shows a photorealistic 3D Tyrannosaurus rex standing over an open encyclopedia page in augmented reality; the creature is sharply rendered with warm amber sidelight, the illustrated page visible beneath it

T-Rex mid-stride, actual AR output

A smartphone screen shows a photorealistic 3D planet with rings hovering above an open space encyclopedia page in augmented reality; the planet glows with a cold blue-white light against the warm cream page below

Saturn's rings, rendered to scale on your table

Two Neobook hardcovers stand spine-out on a warm wooden shelf next to a small vintage globe and a fossilised ammonite; warm amber lamp light falls across the shelf from the left; the composition reads as a curated archive display

The Shelf

The archive grows. A new title enters every quarter.

Every title purchased is permanently tied to your Neobook account. No subscription required to own what you buy. No AR experiences expire.

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From the peer-reviewed record

Children who read an AR book answered deeper-thinking questions significantly better than children who read the same story in print alone.

That is not a marketing claim. It is a finding from published educational research, and it is the reason Neobook was built the way it was.

The objection most parents carry into this page is a reasonable one: does the animation distract from the reading, or deepen it? The evidence answers clearly. When the visual model and the printed text work together, children do not just remember more facts, they construct better explanations, ask more specific questions, and return to the page to check what they saw against what they read. The screen sends them back to the book. That is the design principle every Neobook title is built on.

"The AR layer is not a reward for finishing the page. It is the reason children finish the page."

Based on peer-reviewed research into augmented reality and reading comprehension in children aged 5–10. Full citation available on request.

A child sits alone at a table completely absorbed in reading an open hardcover encyclopedia; a smartphone rests beside the book untouched; soft natural window light falls across the child's face and the open pages; the atmosphere is one of genuine concentration

Absorbed, not distracted, the expression the research describes

AR+ Membership

One membership. Every book we publish. New titles every month.

The AR+ Membership is not a subscription to an app. It is a standing order with the archive. Every new Neobook title that enters the collection arrives in your library the day it is released.

The complete archive, always

Every title Neobook has published, and every title we publish while you are a member, accessible in full through the companion app.

A new title every quarter

The archive grows on a regular cadence. Members receive early access and are the first to know when a new field of study opens.

Member pricing on physical books

Physical copies of any title, at a price that reflects the value of belonging to the archive rather than discovering it for the first time.

Cancel when you choose

No lock-in. Cancel from your account page in under thirty seconds, and every title you accessed remains yours through your paid period.

Members who purchase three or more physical titles save more than the cost of a full year's membership.

A warm wooden bookshelf holds a growing row of Neobook hardcover spines in deep green and navy, with a deliberate gap at the far right suggesting the collection is still expanding; amber incandescent lamp light glows from the left

The archive grows. The gap on the right is reserved for what comes next.

A smartphone screen displays a digital library grid showing multiple children's encyclopedia book covers accessible in one place; the screen glows warmly against the dark shelf background behind it

Your full library, wherever the book is not

What happens after the first page

The moment parents stop worrying about screen time.

These are not the words we would choose. They are the words families used when we asked what changed.

"My daughter Rosie, seven, has read the Dinosaur Encyclopedia four times since it arrived. The fourth time she was checking whether the T-Rex animation matched what the text said about its stride pattern. She is seven. She is fact-checking augmented reality against a printed source. I did not teach her to do that."

Parent of a 7-year-old

Parent of a 7-year-old, Oregon

Verified purchase

"I was prepared to be skeptical about the price. Then my son spent forty minutes on two pages of the Space Explorer and asked me what a Lagrange point was. I looked it up. He was right about where it was in the solar system. The book had shown him. The price is fine."

Parent of a 9-year-old

Parent of a 9-year-old, London

Verified purchase

"I teach a mixed-age science group across five homeschool families. The Dinosaur Encyclopedia anchored our entire prehistoric life unit for six weeks. Children who normally resist written sources asked to take the book home over the weekend. The AR is the hook, but the book is what they actually learn from."

Homeschool co-op educator

Homeschool co-op educator, Texas

Verified educator account

"Setup took four minutes, including the download. My son is six and he now opens the app himself without asking. I thought we would need to supervise every session. We do not. He manages it completely independently, which is the whole point when you are also teaching two other children at the same time."

Homeschool parent of three

Homeschool parent of three, Queensland

Verified purchase

Before you ask, here are the answers

Works on the device already in your home. No base unit. No serial numbers. No friction.

The most common reason families hesitate before purchasing an AR product is a compatibility question. Here is every answer, plainly stated.

iOS compatible

iPhone 6s and above; iPad (5th generation and above); iPod Touch (7th generation). iOS 12 or later.

Android compatible

Any Android device running Android 7.0 or later with a rear-facing camera of 8MP or higher. Includes most devices released after 2017.

No extra hardware

No base unit. No proprietary stylus. No sensor puck. No item in the box other than the book. The AR layer lives in the app, not in any peripheral.

App size and download

The Neobook companion app is 94 MB at install. AR model packs for each title download on first use (under 180 MB) and load once. After that, models run offline.

Satisfaction guarantee

If your Neobook title does not work as described on your device within thirty days of purchase, we will replace it or refund it in full.

Every question a careful parent asks

Answered here, not in a help article you have to search for.

Does this work on Amazon Fire tablets?

The Neobook app is available on iOS and Android via the Apple App Store and Google Play. Amazon Fire tablets run a forked version of Android that does not support the Google Play Store, so the app is not currently available on Fire devices. If your household primarily uses a Fire tablet, we recommend downloading the app on a smartphone first. Most of the AR experiences are designed to be held in one hand over the book, and a phone works extremely well for this.

My child is rough with devices. Will the AR work if the phone moves a lot?

The tracking system re-anchors to the page within a fraction of a second when the phone shifts. Children do not need to hold the phone perfectly still. The 3D model follows the page, not the camera position. It is intentionally designed for the way children actually hold things.

Do we need a Wi-Fi connection to use the AR?

Only for the initial model download, which happens automatically the first time you scan a page. After that, every AR experience in that title runs fully offline. Long car journeys, remote cabins, and rooms without Wi-Fi are all fine.

Who writes the Neobook encyclopedias?

Each title is authored by subject specialists and reviewed by educators for curriculum alignment with national science standards for ages 4–12. The fossil record entries in the Dinosaur Encyclopedia were reviewed by a palaeontologist. The orbital mechanics content in Space Explorer was checked against current NASA published data. We treat accuracy as a condition of the product, not a feature of it.

Is the content appropriate for children at both ends of the 4–12 age range?

Each page is written with a primary reader in mind, but every spread contains a headline entry accessible to a six-year-old and a detail annotation that rewards a twelve-year-old reading independently. Younger children engage primarily with the AR animations and the large-format illustration; older children tend to migrate toward the taxonomic data, the timeline panels, and the measurement comparisons. Both are reading the same book, just at different depths.

Are the AR models scientifically accurate, or designed for spectacle?

Both, without compromise. The T-Rex locomotion in the Dinosaur Encyclopedia reflects current consensus on theropod gait from peer-reviewed biomechanics research. The model does not drag its tail, walks with the correct posture, and is rendered at accurate scale relative to the page. Spectacle and accuracy are not in tension here. A correctly proportioned T-Rex is already extraordinary.

What exactly does the AR+ Membership include?

AR+ Membership gives you digital access to every title in the Neobook archive, all current titles and every title released during your membership, through the companion app. It also gives you member pricing on physical copies of any title, early access to new releases, and a notification when a new title enters the archive. Physical books are not included in the membership price; the membership is access to the digital layer and the library.

How do I cancel, and what happens to my books?

You can cancel your membership at any time from your account settings page. There is no cancellation form, no email required, and no penalty. Your membership access continues until the end of the period you have already paid for. Any physical books you purchased remain yours permanently, along with their AR functionality. The AR app does not require an active membership to work with books you own outright.

Is there a family or homeschool group pricing option?

Educator and co-op pricing is available for groups of five or more families purchasing together. Contact us directly through the educator enquiry form and we will put together an arrangement that reflects the size and structure of your group.

My child loses interest in new things quickly. Why would this be different?

The honest answer is that no product holds every child's attention indefinitely, and we would not claim otherwise. What the research does show, and what families consistently report, is that the combination of a beautiful physical book and a responsive AR layer creates a second reading cycle. Children who have scanned every page still return to the book to re-read entries and compare them to what they saw. The book does retention work that an app alone cannot. But the first scan is the invitation, and it is a compelling one.

My child is four. Is this too advanced?

The youngest readers in the 4–12 range engage primarily with the illustrations and the AR animations. Both are designed to be immediately legible without any reading required. A four-year-old who cannot yet read independently will point, ask questions, and watch the dinosaur move. That is a successful use of the book at that age. The text layers become available as reading develops, and the book grows with the child rather than being outgrown.

The Neobook Dinosaur Encyclopedia lies open on a warm wooden surface, its illustrated pages glowing in soft evening lamp light; a small fossilised ammonite rests beside it; no phone, no screen; the book is beautiful enough on its own
The archive is open

The book stays on the shelf. The adventure never ends.

Start with one encyclopedia and a free app download. Or open the full archive with an AR+ Membership. Either way, the first dinosaur lands on your table within the week.

A Neobook encyclopedia is not a product that has a natural end date. Children read it at four and fact-check it at ten. They put it down and come back to it when they find a fossil at the beach. It is the kind of object that earns a permanent place on the shelf, not a rotation in the toy cupboard.

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