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 Broderbund.
Mantle, CEO of Wanderful, assembled a small team of the original Broderbund 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. Mark Schlichting – creator 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. Wanderful bought the rights from HMH to republish the original games, as well as new and updated versions, and concurrently partnered with many of the authors of the individual stories that became Living Books.
Wanderful was acquired by the Jordan Freeman Group in January 2023. On May 17th 2023, the acquisition was made official, along with Freeman's announcement of a partnership with Arthur creator, Marc Brown.
Living Books titles
Wanderful has re-released the following Living Books titles for the Android (operating system), iOS and Windows (in order by release date):
Arthur's Teacher Trouble (English and Spanish) by Marc Brown
Little Monster at School (English and Spanish) by Mercer Mayer
The Tortoise and the Hare (English and Spanish) an Aesop fable
Harry and the Haunted House (English and Spanish) by Mark Schlichting
The Berenstain Bears Get In A Fight (English and Spanish) by Stan and Jan Berenstain Arthur's Birthday (English and Spanish) by Marc Brown The 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 Dr. Seuss's ABC's (English) by Dr. Seuss Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (English) by Dr. Seuss Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham (English) by Dr. Seuss Sheila Rae, the Brave (English and Spanish) by Kevin Henkes Stellaluna (English and Portuguese) by Janell Cannon Just Grandma and Me (English, Japanese and Spanish) by Mercer Mayer Maggie's Farmyard Adventure (English) by Pat Farrell Arthur's Computer Adventure (English) by Marc Brown Arthur's Reading Race (English) by Marc Brown D.W., The Picky Eater (English) by Marc Brown
Educational Elements
Wanderful has created classroom activity guides for each of the storybook apps.
References
External links
The return of Living Books
Harry And The Haunted House For iOS Gets It Right - David Winograd, Mac Observer
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