Wanderful interactive storybooks
 | |
| Founded | 2010 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Novato, California |
Key people |
Mickey W. Mantle Mark Schlichting |
| Products | interactive storybook apps |
| Website | www.wanderfulstorybooks.com |
Wanderful interactive storybooks is a developer of interactive storybook apps based on the titles originally published as Living Books by Broderbund Software.
The company was founded in 2010 by Mickey W. Mantle, who oversaw the original Living Books technology development as Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technical Officer at Brøderbund.[1]
Mantle, CEO of Wanderful, assembled a small team of the original Brøderbund programmers to create a new engine that could take the animation, graphics, sound and music from the original Living Books CD-ROMs and play them back at full-screen resolution on the iPad using a touch, rather than a mouse driven interface.[2] Mark Schlichting – creator[3] of the Living Books series – joined the team as Chief Creative Officer and developed touch-driven updates to the original mouse-driven interface.
Through a number of corporate mergers, the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had acquired the rights to the Living Books titles and content.[4] Wanderful secured the rights from HMH to republish the new and updated titles and concurrently negotiated rights with many of the authors of the individual stories that became Living Books.
Titles
Wanderful has so far released the following titles as iOS Apps (in order by release date):
- Arthur’s Teacher Trouble (English and Spanish) by Marc Brown (author)
- Little Monster at School (English and Spanish) by Mercer Mayer
- Tortoise and the Hare (English and Spanish) an Aesops fable
- Harry and the Haunted House (English and Spanish) by Mark Schlichting
- Berenstain Bears Get In A Fight (English and Spanish) by Stan and Jan Berenstain
- Wanderful Storybook Sampler (English)
- Arthur’s Birthday (English and Spanish) by Marc Brown (author)
- Berenstain Bears In The Dark (English) by Stan and Jan Berenstain
- Ruff’s Bone (English and Spanish) By Eli Noyes
- The New Kid on the Block (English) by Jack Prelutsky, Illustrated by James Stevenson
- Stellaluna (English and Portuguese) by Janell Cannon
Educational Elements
Wanderful has created classroom activities guides for each of the story apps.[5] The activities in the guides are aligned with the Common Core State Standards Initiative.[6]
References
- ↑ Rose, Michael (October 8, 2012). "Brøderbund's Living Books return for iPad via Wanderful". Retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ↑ Rose, Michael. "Brøderbund's Living Books return for iPad via Wanderful". TUAW.com. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ↑ Burdick, Katherine. "Interview with Mark Schlichting". EAR.org. Education Apps Review. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ↑ Greenfield, Jeremy (June 18, 2012). "Vintage Enhanced E-Books for Your Hip Kids: Living Books, Back to Life". Digital Book World. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
- ↑ Jones, Gwyneth. "Just Wanderful! Living Books Are Back!". The Daring Librarian. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ↑ Catalano, Frank. "Going Retro: Reading Apps for Real Books". KQED Mind/Shift. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
External links
- The return of Living Books
- Harry And The Haunted House For iOS Gets It Right - David Winograd, Mac Observer
- Brøderbund's Classic Living Books Series Comes to iOS - Stephen Noonoo, T.H.E. Journal
- Going Retro: Reading Apps for Real Books (blog post at KQED/MindShift)
- Just Wanderful! Living Books Are Back! - The Daring Librarian
- Interview with Mark Schlichting