Wanderful interactive storybooks is a revived developer of Living Books founded in 2010 by former Living Books CEO Mickey W. Mantle.
A small team of the original Brøderbund programmers were reunited to create a new engine that could emulate the animation, graphics, sound and music from the original Living Books CD-ROMs and convert them to iOS apps 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.
It is currently owned by Jordan Freeman Group. Thus making it possible for the games to be re-released on PC.
Wanderful has so far re-released the following Living Books 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
- The Tortoise and the Hare (English and Spanish) an Aesops 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
- Wanderful Storybook Sampler (English)
- Arthur's Birthday (V1) (English and Spanish) by Marc Brown (author)
- 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
- Stellaluna (English and Portuguese) by Janell Cannon
- Just Grandma and Me (V1) (English, Japanese and Spanish) by Mercer Mayer
Trivia[]
- On April 15, 2023, Jordan Freeman Group announced that they had acquired Wanderful. Thus, making it possible to re-release the games on PC and Mac for Steam and ZOOM Platform.[1] The first release on Steam was Arthur's Birthday on October 15th, 2023.
- On mobile devices, The Quit page was removed, and the Options menu was revamped– allowing you to jump to any page just by dragging down the top screen and scrolling to the desired page, then tapping the page you want to jump to.
- The games are available in more languages including Spanish, German, French, UK English, and Portuguese. When you first purchase an app for each title, you will only get the English language, and purchase is required to get other languages.
- There are two sections of credits on these iOS apps: one being the original Living Books jazz credits from the original games for the Living Books team, and another for the Wanderful team.
- The following games were not re-released by Wanderful on mobile devices as follows:
- Dr. Seuss' ABC, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat in the Hat were not re-released by Wanderful, as they already have their own storybook apps by Oceanhouse Media– which don't use the Living Books versions.
- Software MacKiev once re-released the Living Books version of the three Dr. Seuss interactive Living Books games as an app (with different graphics and/or buttons), but they have since been removed from the App Store to avoid confusion with the Oceanhouse Media apps.
- However, Just Grandma and Me (V1) was released by Wanderful.
- Software MacKiev once re-released the Living Books version of the three Dr. Seuss interactive Living Books games as an app (with different graphics and/or buttons), but they have since been removed from the App Store to avoid confusion with the Oceanhouse Media apps.
- Sheila Rae, the Brave, Arthur's Reading Race, Arthur's Birthday (V2) and Arthur's Computer Adventure were not re-released by Wanderful on Mobile devices for unknown reasons.
- D.W. the Picky Eater was not re-released by Wanderful for Mobile devices, as it was made on a different engine. Making it harder for compatibility.
- Dr. Seuss' ABC, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat in the Hat were not re-released by Wanderful, as they already have their own storybook apps by Oceanhouse Media– which don't use the Living Books versions.