The Main Menu is part of the Living Books series; it serves as the main screen for all Living Books installments (except D.W. the Picky Eater). One of the characters, usually the main character, serves as the host for the main menu as they welcome the player and announce the modes of play, before dancing to the theme music.
The main menu features two modes of play; Read to Me and Let Me Play, both of which can be chosen to decide how the story is read. Read to Me has the story read automatically, while Let Me Play has the player read the story and activate features on each page. The Options button takes the player to another menu where they can jump to a different page of the story or access the demos and credits. The Quit button allows the player to stop playing and exit the game.
Quotes[]
| Game and Host | Startup quote | How to play quote | Mode selected quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just Grandma and Me (Little Critter) | "Hi! I'm Little Critter! Welcome to Living Books!" | "To have the story read to you, press this button. To play inside the story, press this button." | “Here’s the story in English/Japanese/Spanish.” (Read To Me (V1 only)) "Okay." (Read To Me (V2 only) and Let Me Play) |
| Arthur's Teacher Trouble (Arthur Read) | "Hello! My name is Arthur. Welcome to Living Books!" | "To have the story read to you, click right here. To play inside the story, click over here." | "Here is the story in English/Spanish.” (Read To Me) “Okay." (Let Me Play) |
| The Tortoise and the Hare (The Tortoise) | Tortoise: "Welcome to Living Books! I'm the tortoise." Hare: "And I'm the hare! And this is the story of how I beat him in the race. It all began one day when the tortoise was lying around, not doing anything, and I was trying to help him get moving. Gotta go, see you later!" |
"To find out what REALLY happened, you'll have to hear the story. To have the story read to you, click over here. To play inside the story, click over here." | "Okay." |
| The New Kid on the Block (Jack Prelutsky) | "Hi! I'm Jack Prelutsky. Welcome to Living Books! I wrote the poems in The New Kid on the Block. Though I'm usually a poet, today I'll be your guide." | "To pick a poem, click on the arrows till you find one you'd like to hear. To have a poem read to you, click Read to Me. To play inside a poem, click Let Me Play. While you're deciding, I'll sing you a poem called Alligators Are Unfriendly." | "Okay." |
| Ruff's Bone (Ruff) | "(barking) Hello, my name is Ruff. (barking) Welcome to Living Books!" | "(barking) To have the story read to you, click right here. (barking) To play inside the story, click over here." | “(barking) Here is the story in English/Spanish." (Read To Me) (barking)" (Let Me Play) |
| Little Monster at School (Little Monster) | "Hi! I'm Little Monster. Welcome to Living Books!" | "If you want to have the story read to you, press this button. If you want to play inside this story, press this button." | "Okay." |
| Arthur's Birthday (Arthur Read) | "Hi! I'm Arthur. Welcome to Living Books!" | "To have my birthday story read to you, click right here. To play inside my birthday story, click right over there." | “Here is my birthday story in English/Spanish.” (Read To Me (V1 only)) "Okay." (Read To Me (V2 only) and Let Me Play) |
| Harry and the Haunted House (Harry) | "Hi, I'm Harry! Come have an adventure with me and my friends!" | "To have the story read to you click over here. To play inside this story click over here." | “Here is the story in English/Spanish.” (Read To Me) "Let's go!" (Let Me Play) |
| The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight (Brother Bear and Sister Bear) | Both: "Hi! Welcome to Living Books! We are the Berenstain Bears!" Sister: I'm Sister Bear." Brother: "And I'm Brother Bear. This is a story about how we got into a big fight!" Sister: "It's also about how we made up." |
Brother: "If you want to have the story read to you, click right here." Sister: "Or if you want to play inside the story, click over here. Both: "Come on! Let’s dance!" |
Brother: “Here is the story in English.”/Sister: “Here is the story in Spanish.” (Read To Me)
Both: "Come on!" (Let Me Play) |
| Sheila Rae, the Brave (Sheila Rae) | "Hi! Welcome to Living Books! I'm Sheila Rae. This is a story about... well, about me! (giggles)" | "If you want to have my story read to you, click here. Or if you want to come play inside my story, click over here." | “Here’s the story in English/Spanish.” (Read To Me) "Okay." (Let Me Play) |
| Dr. Seuss' ABC (Icabod and Izzy) | Ichabod: "Hi, I'm Ichabod!" Izzy: "And I'm Izzy!" Both: "Welcome to Living Books!" Izzy: "We're gonna have fun with the alphabet! Want to come?" |
Ichabod: "To have this book read to you, click this button." Izzy: "If you want to play from the beginning, click this button." |
Izzy: "Okay." (Read to Me) "Okay." Ichabod: "Don't forget to click on the words, too." (Let Me Play) |
| The Berenstain Bears in the Dark (Sister Bear) | "Hi! I'm Sister Bear! Welcome to Living Books! This is a story about the time Brother Bear read me a scary book, and made me afraid of the dark! Did that ever happen to you?" | "If you want the story read to you click right here. If you want to play inside the story click right here." | "Okay." (Read to Me) "Okay, let's play!" (Let Me Play) |
| Green Eggs and Ham (Sam-I-Am) | "Hi! I am Sam! Sam-I-Am! Welcome to Green Eggs and Ham!" | "If you want to hear the story, you see, click right here on Read to Me. You want to do much more, you say? Then click right here on Let Me Play." | "Okay." |
| Stellaluna (Stellaluna (character)) | "(yawns) Oh, hello! Welcome to Living Books! This is the story of a young fruit bat -- Me! My name is Stellaluna." | "If you want to have my book read to you, click over here. To have a story read and play inside it, click over here. To learn more about bats, click here." | "Okay, let's go!" |
| Arthur's Reading Race (D.W. Read) | Arthur: "Hi! I'm Arthur." D.W.: "Wait for me! And I'm D.W. Welcome to Living Books! Oh yeah, and that's Arthur's dumb dog, Pal. But this book is about me! I know how to read! Come for a walk with us and see!" |
"If you want to have this book read to you, click this button. If you want to play inside the story click this button." | "Okay." |
| The Cat in the Hat (The Cat In The Hat) | "Oh! I'm the Cat in the Hat! This is my Living Book! I am here to have fun, won't you come take a look?" | "Now, to hear our fine story read out loud and clear, move the arrow to this side and click right down here. If you like to explore and to look everywhere, you can play on our pages; just click over there." | "Let's go!" |
| Arthur's Computer Adventure (Arthur Read) | Arthur: "Hi! I'm Arthur. Welcome to Living Books! You've got to see the new computer game the Brain gave me! It's called Deep Dark Sea. You search for sunken treasure, but you've gotta watch out for dangerous sea creatures, pirates skeletons and ghosts, and --" Jane: "Arthur. it's time for dinner!"
Arthur: "Oh, no, it's already dinnertime! But you should come along. Maybe we can play Deep Dark Sea together!" |
"If you want this story read to you, click this button. If you want to play inside the story, click this button." | “Okay, let’s read!” (Read To Me)
"Okay, let's go!" (Let Me Play) |
Trivia[]
- On Green Eggs and Ham, clicking on either "Read to Me" or "Let Me Play" have Sam-I-Am saying "Okay!" differently.