Mike the Knight, he’s a brave young hero… Both our sons went through Mike the Knight phases, running round the house with imaginary dragon friends inspired by the CBeebies TV show.

Now there’s a new app for that, released by HIT Entertainment this week for iPhone and iPad. It’s called Mike the Knight Storybook Treasury, and as its name implies, it’s a collection of stories.

Three, to be specific, although only one of them comes for free in the app. That’s called Meet Mike, and promises “a tour of Glendragon that’s worthy of a king”. That means introducing the various characters, from Mike’s sister Evie and his dragon chums Sparkie and Squirt through to the Troll family.

The other two stories are available as in-app purchases, costing £1.49 each. Mike and the Dragons focuses on Mike’s two “loyal, fun, adventurous friends”, while Mike the Knight and the Good Deed sees Mike and Evie setting off to perform good deeds for everyone in the kingdom (although, SPOILER ALERT, it doesn’t quite go to plan).

In-app purchases in children’s apps have had a bad press in recent months, often (sadly) for good reason. Actually, though, we like this model in storybook apps, where you get something for free, then as a parent can choose when you want to spend money on new stories.

The Classic Winnie-the-Pooh app used a similar idea last year, and it can work well as a reward system for good behaviour: “If you’re good this week, we’ll get a new Mike the Knight story on Friday…” The question is whether more stories will be added to this app over time beyond the first three.

Mike the Knight Storybook Treasury is a free download for iPhone and iPad on Apple’s App Store.