Living Books was a series of interactive animated multimedia children's books produced by Brøderbund and 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. The series is due for updates for modern computers, as well as the iPhone/Pod/Pad and Android mobile devices, by a company named Wanderful Interactive Storybooks.The games in the series, in order, are:note Titles republished by Wanderful Interactive Storybooks are marked in bold
All of the games have the option to either have the story be read to you, or to play the story and then allow you to click anywhere to bring inanimate objects to life. Pretty much everyone who played the games went with the latter option.They are notable for featuring Easter Egg-laden stills of each page.
Tropes featured include:
Adaptation Expansion: Some games have extra scenes that aren't in the original books.
Added Alliterative Appeal: Just about everything said in Dr. Seuss's ABC. (except in the Hub pages and the demo section)
Animal Talk: Ruff in Ruff's Bone can only bark, but is able to talk to the player.
Anti-Frustration Features: According to this article, the running guy cursor during the load screens was used to keep the players distracted while they wait.
Art Evolution: The early titles featured characters with very basic design and no shading, and much more Limited Animation. Eventually, the characters started to look more like actual illustrations, and the animation got progressively better.
Blatant Lies: On the title screen for The Tortoise and the Hare, the Hare introduces himself like so:
Hare: And I'm the Hare! And this is the story about how I beat him in the race! It all began one day when the Tortoise was just lying around not doing anything, and I was trying to help him get moving! (Checks watch) Oh, gotta go! See you later!
Boring, but Practical: The "Read to Me" option is unanimously considered to almost be a total throwaway option (in fact, D.W. the Picky Eater doesn't even have the option at all). However, when you think about it, it does make sense for the option to exist, considering it is a book, after all.
In Dr. Seuss's ABC, Page Y has Young Yolanda Yorgenson yelling "Yoo-Hoo, is that you out yonder?", followed by a voice saying "Yes!". This turns out to be the voice of the Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz on Page Z.
Arthur's Computer Adventure has one page where a couple of mice order a large cheese pizza with extra cheese, hold the pizza. A later page has a man at the pizza parlor calling Arthur's voice mail confirming the order.
Call Back: It wasn't uncommon for a game's click point to feature a Call Back to an earlier game.
Harry and the Haunted House features the return of the epic paper airplane from Arthur's Teacher Trouble on Page 8. One of the bugs folds a piece of paper to form it, and when he tosses it off, it plays the same heavy metal it was known for.
Dr. Seuss's ABC has a Call Back to the same game — on Page K, clicking on the kite reveals the small yellow guy (the Zed) sliding down the string and creating a hole. He tries patching it up, but it still shows a little bit. Clicking on the hole forms a spider, playing the same music it went along with in Arthur's Teacher Trouble.
Little Monster at School also features the return of the epic paper airplane. On Page 12, one of the kids inside the school for recess decides to throw a paper airplane out; when he tosses it, the heavy metal music plays when it flies.
The Recurring Riff in Arthur's Birthday is an upbeat remix of the tune from Arthur's Teacher Trouble.
Compressed Adaptation: The New Kid on the Block only features 17 of the original 100+ poems found in the original book for obvious reasons.
Cultural Translation: Spot in Harry and the Haunted House is light brown instead of white in the European versions.
Owner: Okay Ruff, here's your bone. Ready? (throws bone) Whoa! I didn't know my own strength; Go get it Ruff.
Dub Name Change: D.W.'s name in Spanish is Dorita, since "W" isn't used often in Spanish.
Dummied Out: The first four titles, on their V1.1 releases, only feature Ruff's Bone as the preview. However, previews for Arthur's Birthday and Harry and the Haunted House also exist in the files, but can only be accessed by modifying the outline file.
Early Installment Weirdness: Just Grandma and Me has much more basic click points, and has no Running Gag (V2 remedied this with Little Critter's grasshopper friend). One moment of notice is when clicking on a radio causes it to play the same noise as when you click on a menu button. Later games only used this noise on the menu and nowhere else.
Easter Egg: Lots of them. Such as clicking on the letters that spell out HELP! in the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey minigame in version 2 of Arthur's Birthday, which would cause the graphics to be all Christmas-y.
The End: Nearly every game ends on this, though there are a few exceptions, such as The Cat in the Hat and Stellaluna.
Episode Title Card: After the logo, the book cover will show up along with the title being announced.
Everything's Nuttier With Squirrels: Lampshaded in The Berenstain Bears in the Dark; a click point on Page 3 has a squirrel violently rock Mama Bear's chair back in forth, which causes her to respond with "Those nutty squirrels!"
Feelies: Almost every title came with the book it was based off of, and a parental guide in a few cases. Also, the disc had audio tracks for when you wanted to listen to the music from the game.
Follow the Leader: A ton. Living Books completely changed the face of Edutainment Games, so naturally many followed suit of varying results. In fact, this is what most of the cheaply done edutainment titles consisted of during the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s. Many of them weren't even books to begin with. Specific examples:
The Disney Animated Storybooks, which adapted various Disney films into interactive books. Some of these were The Lion King and 101 Dalmatians. Ironically, Media Station developed some of these titles, and would later go on to make D.W. the Picky Eater, which was an actual Living Book, and would also be the Oddball in the Series.
GT Interactive did various Mercer Mayer stories, such as Just Me and My Mom, Just Me and My Dad, and Little Monster Private Eye: The Smelly Mystery. These were arguably some of the better clones though, as they made it less of an interactive book and more of a game.
The Magic Tales series was a take on classic foreign folk tales rather than children's books, and were made by Animation Magic. Yes, thatAnimationMagic.
The paper airplane on Page 24 of Arthur's Teacher Trouble is hidden in an extremely obscure spot. As in, the last place you'd ever expect to look. On top of that, the click box is very small. The location of it is just barely above Mr. Ratburn's head.
The dragonfly in The Tortoise and the Hare is hidden in some very obscure places, and is commonly used as the yardstick for levels of obscurity when it comes to other Guide Dang Its. For example, on Page 11, he's hidden on the far left, a place that looks like there's nothing to click on there.
Here We Go Again: In Ruff's Bone, after Ruff FINALLY retrieves his bone from a long journey, his owner throws it again. His reaction is...less than satisfying.
Hypocritical Humor: A kid on Page 3 of Sheila Rae mentions why he was sent to the principal's — through talking too much. This, of course, prompts him to start getting very talkative about it.
Interface Spoiler: On many occasions, during a huge plot twist or something along the lines of that, the text would always be displayed as the twist was being worked.
Mr. Read: (talking about ice cream flavors) Look! We've got chocolate...strawberry...and mocha almond spinach!
Arthur and D.W.: Ewww!
Mr. Read: Just kidding.
D.W.: Dad, that's not funny!
Licked by the Dog: On Page 3 of Sheila Rae, a click spot has a dog coming up to Wendell, while he's tied up in a jump rope. He tries to get the dog to untie him, but he gets licked on the face instead, and he finds it disgusting.
Magic Carpet: Page C of Dr. Seuss's ABC features one.
Mini-Game: Some later games included one, and even later games included several. note The books that have mini games are Sheila Rae, In the Dark, Green Eggs and Ham, Stellaluna, Arthur's Reading Race, The Cat in the Hat, Arthur's Birthday V2, Arthur's Computer Adventure, and D.W. The Picky Eater. Dr. Seuss's ABC has a Let Me Play style for the ABC song, and Just Grandma and Me V2 has a sticker placement activity on every page
Motor Mouth: Hare from The Tortoise and the Hare, though only sometimes.
Musical Nod: Music from previous games were featured in newer additions to the series.
A record player on Page 7 of Arthur's Teacher Trouble plays the Recurring Riff from Just Grandma and Me.
Clicking on the lamp in page 11 of Arthur's Birthday plays the Recurring Riff from Arthur's Teacher Trouble.
The New Kid on the Block is the only one to be based on short poems rather than a whole story.
The New Kid on the Block and Dr. Seuss's ABC are the only two where most of the interaction comes from clicking on the text.
D.W. the Picky Eater is the only game that doesn't use the Mohawk engine.
Once an Episode: The title screens are always done in the same format - the main character explains what to do, and then they dance to the Recurring Riff.
Pop Up Video Games: The Let Me Play option in every single game in the series.
Recurring Extra: A few stories have minor characters who don't have much to do with the story, but show up on almost every page. The birds in Sheila Rae are an example.
Recurring Riff: Every game has one. The character will always dance to it on every title screen after explaining what to do. note D.W. The Picky Eater is the only game where the character doesn't dance to it; instead it appears in the credits
Running Gag: Every game has an element that shows up on every page, except The New Kid on the Block. Specific examples:
Arthur's Teacher Trouble has a paper airplane, complete with heavy metal music.
The Tortoise and the Hare has a dragonfly, who is hidden in very obscure places.
Ruff's Bone has the bone as the gag, and the only page it doesn't appear on is page 9.
Little Monster at School has Little Monster's pet Zipper-Umpa-Zoo.
Arthur's Birthday has party supplies popping out of random objects. (Both versions are the same)
Harry and the Haunted House has a spider.
The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight has a bee. The iPad/iPod versions gave him the name Buzzy.
Dr. Seuss's ABC has a yellow fuzzy guy (the Zed).
Sheila Rae, the Brave has butterflies. It changes from page to page, but there's always a butterfly somewhere.
The Berenstain Bears in the Dark has a firefly.
Green Eggs and Ham has a green bird.
Stellaluna has a moth.
Arthur's Reading Race has an orange cat.
Just Grandma and Me V2 retroactively added one — Little Critter's grasshopper friend.
The Cat in the Hat has a purple bird.
Arthur's Computer Adventure has a couple of mice.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In Arthur's Computer Adventure, the lamp near Arthur's computer keeps begging you to not click on him. He pulls this on his final page by hopping off the table and leaving when you click on him too many times.
In a similar vein, Just Grandma and Me was dubbed in Spanish twice — once in Latin Spanish (what V1 includes), and once in Castilian Spanish (what V2 includes).
Soundtrack Dissonance: The paper airplane Running Gag in Arthur's Teacher Trouble gets some heavy metal music, despite just being an airplane being made of paper. This is exactly why it became so well-known.
Stock Footage: Surprisingly averted for the most part, even in games from the same book series. The Berenstain Bears in the Dark is one example though — the "The End" screen, the options screen, and the quit screen all reuse animations from Get in a Fight, with some of the dialog being exactly the same. The "The End" screen is particularly blatant due to the lack of detail on the characters compared to the rest of the game.
Updated Rerelease: Just Grandma and Me and Arthur's Birthday have one. They increased the resolution, and the former added a UI for languages while the latter added minigames. The latter also gets rid of the Spanish language option.
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