Companies that make kids' products know that "licensed" characters sell. Add Simba to a towel or Big Bird to a pair of pajamas, and kids love it. So don't be surprised if your kids pull Casper Brainy Book off the shelf and tell you it's the software they really want!
Casper Brainy Book is a 12-page interactive story, plus three reading games and full-motion video clips from the movie (in case your kids would rather watch than read). The story is rather short on words - each page includes only a line or two of text - and the animated illustrations do not measure up to the usually delightful artistic standards of childrens' storybooks. We've found that Stories on Screen often lead kids back to reading the book. In fact, all Living Books titles come with a copy of the book right in the software package. But with Casper, no book is included.
The Casper games don't do much to inspire kids with the joys of reading, either. One game is simply a series of visual puzzles, an activity which we've found works better for most kids the old-fashioned way, off the computer. Another is a concentration game where kids match words to pictures. In the third, kids place falling, Tetris-like letters into a word by pushing the arrow keys.
Casper may be a friendly ghost, but our kid testers found this program to be decidedly unfriendly. Eager to begin, they raced through every page and then turned to the games. But before they could play, the software required them to "unlock" each game with a set of keys hidden among the pages of the story. Unhappily, they discovered that the keys could be found only by listening to every page of the (not too interesting) story all over again. One test family was appalled when their 5-year-old collapsed in tears of frustration. Although she recognized every letter in the falling letter game, she couldn't move the mouse or tap the arrow keys fast enough to get them in the right place.
The bottom line: If you're looking for an interactive storybook to inspire young readers, this is not your best choice. Casper fans - stick with the movie version! Get the Guide for reviews of some great interactive stories in our Stories on Screen and New and Notable chapters.
