A Mission to Inspire
Wanderful seeks to inspire young and emerging readers to build a lasting love of language, reading and learning through highly interactive multilingual storybook apps with integrated lesson plans aligned to the Common Core State Standards. We strive to:
1. Engage children with each story by filling every storybook with animation, sound and musical antics that support the story.
2. Give life to all words on each page by highlighting them when spoken and allowing young readers to build original phrases by tapping and hearing the words individually.
3. Expose children to multiple languages from any storybook page.
4. Integrate the story experience into the classroom curricula with activities that expand on the storybook themes
Wanderful: The freedom to be yourself and play inside the story. Wanderful is whimsical and uninhibited, inspiring young readers to wander through the stories, finding wonder as they explore each and every page.
The Wanderful Story
Wanderful CEO Mickey W. Mantle, embarked on a journey to revive the award-winning Living Books the moment he saw the first iPad announced by his old boss Steve Jobs. He knew it represented the right platform upon which to introduce a new generation of kids to these classic interactive experiences. And he was no stranger to these titles; Mickey oversaw the original Living Books technology development as Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technical Officer at Brøderbund Software in the 1990s.
So he reached out to Mark Schlichting – creator of the Living Books series – and attracted a small team of the original Brøderbund programmers to create the prototype for a new generation of technology 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.
Mickey approached Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the eventual successor to Brøderbund and owner of Living Books, and to the authors of the original stories to secure the rights to republish the new and improved titles. Meanwhile, the team built a multi-platform engine that again innovates beyond expectation, with new features such as dynamically changing languages from any page in the story. The engine delivers a level of character animation not seen in many other titles today; as in the original Living Books, when something is tapped it doesn't just move, it comes to life.
All in all, it took more than two years to secure the rights, enhance the products and launch Wanderful Interactive Storybooks so that a new generation of children around the world can enjoy these amazing educational experiences.
Download "Classical Entertainment on Current Technologies" article in Feb 2015 issue of CGW
by M. Mantle
How Living Books and Wanderful got started...
https://wanderfulstorybooks.com/STAGE/livingbooks_littlecritter_just_grandma_and_me.html
Engaging multimedia and interaction
Why these Apps are so Beloved
Developed from the original Living Books collection, these engaging storybooks are insanely fun, interactive and timeless. You simply can not wear them out and the dog won't chew them up.
The Team
Mickey W. Mantle
Founder, President and CEO of Wanderful Interactive Storybooks
Mickey sets strategic vision and oversees day-to-day operations for Wanderful. Mickey had the foresight to license the exclusive rights to the beloved Living Books series of interactive storybooks, and revive these titles and others as enhanced mobile apps, as well as for the latest and popular versions of Mac and Windows computers. Mickey sets strategic vision and oversees day-to-day operations for Wanderful. Mickey sets strategic vision and oversees day-to-day operations for Wanderful. Mickey had the foresight to license the exclusive rights to the beloved Living Books series of interactive storybooks, and revive these titles and others as enhanced mobile apps, as well as for the latest and popular versions of Mac and Windows computers. Mickey has a track record of more than 40 years of success in the software industry. A graduate of the University of Utah with a degree in Computer Science (contemporary with computer industry notables such as the founders of Word Perfect, Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Adobe Systems, and Pixar), his career includes working at computer graphics pioneer Evans & Sutherland (E&S), and then joining Pixar shortly after it was bought by Steve Jobs in 1986. At Pixar, Mickey managed the development of all of the software for their external products, including the Pixar Image Computerand RenderMan. RenderMan is the gold standard of 3D photorealistic rendering software and has been used on almost every Visual Effects Academy Award Winner for the past two decades. In 1991, Mickey joined BrøderbundSoftware as Vice President of Engineering/Chief Technical Officer where he managed the vast development organization that produced numerous award-winning PC and Mac games such as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Kid Pix, Myst and Living Books. Leaving Brøderbund in late 1997, he then joined Gracenote where, as Senior Vice President of Development, he managed all development, operations and professional services associated with the pioneering web-based CDDB/Gracenote music informat
Mark Schlichting
Vice President and Chief Creative Officer
Mark Schlichting is a well-known pioneer of the children's multimedia and interactive design industry. As an expert in children's interactive design with more than 30 years of design, publishing and creative management experience, he holds more than 80 awards for excellence in entertainment and education. Serving as Chief Creative Officer of Wanderful, Mark was deeply involved
Mark Schlichting is a well-known pioneer of the children's multimedia and interactive design industry. As an expert in children's interactive design with more than 30 years of design, publishing and creative management experience, he holds more than 80 awards for excellence in entertainment and education. Serving as Chief Creative Officer of Wanderful, Mark was deeply involved in the new interface designs for navigation and language changing as well as other duties.
Mark is passionate about creating engaging products for kids and has spent most of his career learning the subtleties of designing interactions that are both magical and foster learning through exploration. He is probably best known as the creator of Brøderbund's Living Books CD-ROM series, where he was the first to bring Dr. Seuss, Mercer Meyer's "Little Critter," and Marc Brown's "Arthur" from books into digital media, creating the animated interactive book category.
Mark is also the author of Harry and The Haunted House book and multilingual Wanderful interactive storybook.
After Brøderbund, Mark was the CCO at Narrative Communications, an early streaming technology company where he was the first to animate and stream Mozilla, Netscape's mascot. Schlichting also served as VP of Design & Development at JuniorNet, a children's online network, where he worked with Highlights for Children, Ranger Rick, Weekly Reader, Zillions, Sports Illustrated for Kids, and Jim Henson/Disney's - Bear and The Big Blue House.
In 2000, Mark founded NoodleWorks Interactive (www.noodleworks.com), a creative design consulting and production company specializing in children's interactiv
Lucinda Ray
Education Specialist
Lucinda Ray, educational consultant and editor for the Classroom Activities for Wanderful, has alternated throughout her career between classroom teaching and educational software development.
Lucinda Ray, educational consultant and editor for the Classroom Activities for Wanderful, has alternated throughout her career between classroom teaching and educational software development.
After many years as a middle school and high school English teacher and drama director in Massachusetts and Vermont, she joined Brøderbund in 1993 as Education Product Manager. During her years at Brøderbund, she managed the development and editing of more than 60 Teacher's Guides to accompany Brøderbund and Living Books programs. The Living Books products were among her favorites, and she is delighted to be working again updating the materials for classroom teachers that she developed initially for Living Books.
After leaving Brøderbund in 1999, she was the Director of Curriculum Development for Intellitools, a developer of software and assistive technology for children with special needs. At Intellitools, she managed the development of Balanced Literacy, an accessible early reading program, and a bilingual software program that accompanied Houghton Mifflin's K-6 reading series, Get Set for Reading.
In 2005, she returned to the classroom, and she is currently teaching English at Contra Costa College, in San Pablo, California. She also spent four years as a Product Manager and then the Director of the Enterprise Market at Safari Books Online, a subscription service providing access to thousands of books for computer professionals.
Lucinda has an M.F.A in Theater Education from Boston University as well as an M.A. in English from the Bread Loaf School of English, with an emphasis on writing.
Classroom Activity Guides
Activities aligned with the Common Core State Standards bring the interactive storybooks to life in your class.
Classroom Activity guides are available as an in-app purchase, click to download the free preview
Download
Applications that teach children about Language
The Wanderful Interactive storybooks are being released in new languages and language combinations. Language as a central part of what makes these apps special - including the ability to instantly switch between the languages in each app. They are now available in the following full language versions: UK English
CLICK HERE TO REVIEW ALL LANGUAGE OPTIONS
French, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian and Portuguese
Applications
Platforms
© 2023 Wanderful, LLC (DBA: Wanderful Interactive Storybooks). A Jordan Freeman Group Company. Powered by ZOOM Platform. All Rights Reserved. Living Books is a registered trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, used with permission. Arthur, © Marc Brown Studios, All Rights Reserved. Little Monster © Mercer Mayer, All Rights Reserved.