Living Books series
Encyclopedia
The Living Books series is a series of interactive animated multimedia children's books, first produced by Brøderbund
and then spun off into a jointly-owned (with Random House
) subsidiary, which were distributed on CD-ROM
for Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows
. The series began with the release of Just Grandma and Me (an adaptation of the book by Mercer Mayer
) in 1992; other titles in the series included The Tortoise and the Hare
, Arthur's Teacher Trouble
(and other adaptations of books by Marc Brown
), Dr. Seuss
and Berenstain Bears
titles.
Living Books became quite popular in the mid-1990s and were even used in some classrooms to teach English
. Some home-computer users reported purchasing CD-ROM drives and sound card
s specifically to run Living Books.
Many of them had selections for other languages, such as Spanish
and Japanese
in US releases, and French
and German
in European ones.
The series did have an official website, www.livingbooks.com, but after the series was canceled by Broderbund, the site was up for grabs and bought by Scholastic. It was then converted into a jungle book series website that sold books published by Scholastic.
† = Only English is available as a language for this Living Books program
, in a review of Dr. Seuss' ABC, called that title "one of the best children's CD-ROMs to date" and stated that, "[...] the producers' fondness for Dr. Seuss and their fidelity to his sense of refined silliness spill into every sequence." Simson L. Garfinkel and Beth Rosenberg found that the CD-ROMs played better on Macs than on PCs. Although they found the titles to be of high quality in a market flooded with "questionable" releases for children, they stated that not all of them lived up to the company's educational claims (noting Dr. Seuss' ABC and Arthur's reading Race as exceptions) and felt that the added dialogue supplementing the book's text was sometimes "out of character". Arthur's Teacher Trouble, The Tortoise and the Hare, Ruff's Bone, and Little Monster at School all received a very high score of over 90.00 in the book CD-ROMs Rated by Les Kranz; in the review for Little Monster at School, the graphics and the number of clickable areas were described as positives.
Brøderbund
Brøderbund Software, Inc. was an American maker of computer games, educational software and The Print Shop productivity tools. It was best known as the original creator and publisher of the popular Carmen Sandiego games. The company was founded in Eugene, Oregon, but moved to San Rafael,...
and then spun off into a jointly-owned (with Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
) subsidiary, which were distributed on CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
for Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. The series began with the release of Just Grandma and Me (an adaptation of the book by Mercer Mayer
Mercer Mayer
Mercer Mayer is an American children's book writer and illustrator. He has published over 300 books using a wide range of illustrative styles...
) in 1992; other titles in the series included The Tortoise and the Hare
The Tortoise and the Hare
The Tortoise and the Hare is a fable attributed to Aesop and is number 226 in the Perry Index. The story concerns a hare who ridicules a slow-moving tortoise and is challenged by him to a race. The hare soon leaves the tortoise behind and, confident of winning, decides to take a nap midway through...
, Arthur's Teacher Trouble
Arthur's Teacher Trouble
Arthur's Teacher Trouble is a book in the Arthur series, released in 1986.. It was written by Marc Brown and published by Atlantic Monthly Press.-Plot:...
(and other adaptations of books by Marc Brown
Marc Brown (author)
Marc Tolon Brown is an American writer of children's books. He writes as well as illustrates his Arthur books, and is best known for that series and its spin-offs. He currently lives in Hingham, Massachusetts. The names of his two sons, Tolon Adam and Tucker Eliot, have been hidden in all of the...
), Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
and Berenstain Bears
Berenstain Bears
The Berenstain Bears is a series of children's books created by Stan and Jan Berenstain. The books feature a family of anthropomorphic bears who generally learn a moral or safety-related lesson in the course of each story...
titles.
Living Books became quite popular in the mid-1990s and were even used in some classrooms to teach English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Some home-computer users reported purchasing CD-ROM drives and sound card
Sound card
A sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...
s specifically to run Living Books.
Many of them had selections for other languages, such as Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
in US releases, and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
in European ones.
The series did have an official website, www.livingbooks.com, but after the series was canceled by Broderbund, the site was up for grabs and bought by Scholastic. It was then converted into a jungle book series website that sold books published by Scholastic.
CD-ROMs in the series
- Just Grandma and Me (1992)
- Arthur's Teacher TroubleArthur's Teacher TroubleArthur's Teacher Trouble is a book in the Arthur series, released in 1986.. It was written by Marc Brown and published by Atlantic Monthly Press.-Plot:...
(1993) - The New Kid on the Block (1993)†
- The Tortoise and the HareThe Tortoise and the HareThe Tortoise and the Hare is a fable attributed to Aesop and is number 226 in the Perry Index. The story concerns a hare who ridicules a slow-moving tortoise and is challenged by him to a race. The hare soon leaves the tortoise behind and, confident of winning, decides to take a nap midway through...
(1993) - (Colossal) Pictures(Colossal) PicturesPictures was an award-winning entertainment company that developed and produced television programming, network branding, and film titles....
' Ruff's Bone (1994) - Little Monster at School (1994)
- Arthur's Birthday (1994)
- Harry and the Haunted House (1994)
- The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight (1995)
- Dr. Seuss's ABC (1995)†
- StellalunaStellalunaStellaluna is a fictional female fruit bat in a children's book of the same name by author Janell Cannon, written in 1993. In fact, this book aired on the PBS series Reading Rainbow in 1994. On that episode, Anne Jackson narrated the story. It is featured in the 2001 movie I am Sam and is a very...
(1996)† - Green Eggs and HamGreen Eggs and HamGreen Eggs and Ham is a best-selling and critically acclaimed book by Dr. Seuss, first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2001, according to Publishers Weekly, it was the fourth-best-selling English-language children's book of all time....
(1996)† - The Berenstain Bears in the Dark (1996)†
- Sheila Rae, the Brave (1996)
- Arthur's Reading Race (1996)†
- Just Grandma and Me 2.0 (1996)
- Arthur's Birthday 2.0 (1996)
- The Cat in the HatThe Cat in the HatThe Cat in the Hat is a children's book by Dr. Seuss and perhaps the most famous, featuring a tall, anthropomorphic, mischievous cat, wearing a tall, red and white-striped hat and a red bow tie. He also carries a pale blue umbrella...
(1997)† - Arthur's Computer Adventure (1997)†
- D.W. the Picky Eater (1998)
- The Art LessonThe Art LessonThe Art Lesson is a children's picture book by Tomie DePaola, a story of compromise. It's the story of a boy named Tommy, an enthusiastic painter and drawer. He makes pictures for his relatives and draws on the sidewalk, on bedsheets, and even on walls. For his birthday he gets a box of 64 crayons...
(1994)(Rare Living Book, only included in "Living Books Library" - School Edition)
† = Only English is available as a language for this Living Books program
Use
Almost all the CD-ROMs in the series give the user the same four options:- Read to Me button: The story is read to the user.
- Let me Play button: Takes the user to the story and allows interaction after each page is read.
- Options button: Takes the user to the Options menu where they can see the credits, and any demos/previews if available and choosing the page from the Let Me Play button and clicking the "OK" button.
- Quit button: Closes the program and returns to the user's computer desktop.
Reception
Publishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
, in a review of Dr. Seuss' ABC, called that title "one of the best children's CD-ROMs to date" and stated that, "[...] the producers' fondness for Dr. Seuss and their fidelity to his sense of refined silliness spill into every sequence." Simson L. Garfinkel and Beth Rosenberg found that the CD-ROMs played better on Macs than on PCs. Although they found the titles to be of high quality in a market flooded with "questionable" releases for children, they stated that not all of them lived up to the company's educational claims (noting Dr. Seuss' ABC and Arthur's reading Race as exceptions) and felt that the added dialogue supplementing the book's text was sometimes "out of character". Arthur's Teacher Trouble, The Tortoise and the Hare, Ruff's Bone, and Little Monster at School all received a very high score of over 90.00 in the book CD-ROMs Rated by Les Kranz; in the review for Little Monster at School, the graphics and the number of clickable areas were described as positives.
External links
- "Behind the Scenes at Broderbund's Living Books" May 25, 1993. Retrieved October 15, 2008.