ABC by Dr. Seuss (PC)

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In ABC there are a few different ways your child can play. This starts with the 2 creatures Icabod and Izzy telling you that you can choose to have the story read to you or you can choose to participate in this interactive story telling adventure. There is also the ABC song to sing along to and in options you can choose a specific letter to go to. This is excellent if you have stopped part of the way through. It does take quite ...
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The ABC song is well known for anyone who used to watch Sesame Street or these days Barney and the letters light up as they are each sung by Icabod and Izzy.

There are over 600 words for your child to learn and over 400 different things to click on in order to find them. The rhinocerous' rear was one we didn't find straight away as my son clicked on his head to start with which set off a different sequence of events. ... more

My son was bought this as a Christmas present from his big sisters last year and they informed me that it only cost them £6 from TK Maxx which is a bit of a bargain when you see that it's listed as selling for around £15. The main reason they bought it was the my son loves Dr Seuss books and having seen how good the Cat and The Hat CD Rom was that we had for him previously they decided this should help keep him amused as well as help him learn his ABC's as he was already taking an interest in lettering on certain products and in the magnetic letters on his gran's fridge door. He also loves pressing keys on my PC and hearing stories and playing games on the CBeebies website and as this had helped him with counting - thanks to a very annoying Teletubbies game - they thought this would be ideal.

Dr Seuss is well known to most parents but after reading a review on one of the Dr Seuss books recently I was surprised to read amongst the comments that there were still quite a few people out there who weren't actually aware of his amazing set of books so I'll give you a brief background history of who Dr Seuss was and some of the wonderful books and animations he has created as I feel this will be useful in describing this CD Rom to you.

Theodore Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in the year 1904 and along with his German-immigrant family faced much hatred as America became involved in the 1st World War. However, the family took part in many pro-American campaigns and they were accepted and well liked throughout their community. His first real example of rhymes were the bedtime tales told by his mother who had previously worked in a pie shop and had learned different chants for her sales patter.

Ted as he was better known worked as editor in chief at of a humour magazine at Dartmouth College and this is where his middle name was first used when signing his work. He was then sent away to Oxford to spare the family's blushes after claiming that he had won a fellowship to go there. When this was made public knowledge his father did everything he could to get enough money together so Ted could go and it was there he met his wife Helen Palmer who persuaded him to give up his ideas of being a professor and become an artist instead as she loved his sketchings so much.

He started off his career as a cartoonist and was eventually offered work at Judge, a weekly publication in New York. His early work there are the beginnings of his characters that we see in his books and on this learning game today. When World War 2 broke out Ted served in the Signal Corps in the US Army and made movies to help the training of recruits and this was his first time at creating animations on screen. These Private Snafu animations set off the start of what would become many famous rhymes for children's stories worldwide.

As well as this work his wife encouraged him to write his rhymes down in the form of his first children't book 'And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street' which was rejected by many publishers before Vanguard Press took it on thanks to an old friend of Ted's. It was due to the success of this book that 'The Cat In The Hat' came about and the success that followed astounded him.

Ted died in 1991 but not before he could see some of creations be turned into animation such as The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat which also includes The Hoober-Bloob Highway on the DVD. Even though he wasn't much good himself with a computer he did realise the importance that these could have on learning possibilities but unfortunately it wasn't until after his death that the first CD Rom of his work was developed.

It is perhaps his genuine love for creating unusual characters and creatures that gives his work such a magical feeling to it. The illustrations in his books, on screen animations and in the CD Rom appeal not just to children but to adults too. Whilst most people have seen The Grinch and The Cat in the Hat drawings, many are unaware of the Wump with the Hump or Ned who is too big for his bed, both of which are characters for the book Red Fish, Blue Fish, One Fish, Two Fish. The simplistic and nonsensical rhymes are fun for adults to read to their children especially as there are some tongue twisters in there at times and books such as Hop On Pop really help children put together our language with the aid of lovely simple rhyming such as Up Pup, Pup is Up.

In ABC there are a few different ways your child can play. This starts with the 2 creatures Icabod and Izzy telling you that you can choose to have the story read to you or you can choose to participate in this interactive story telling adventure. There is also the ABC song to sing along to and in options you can choose a specific letter to go to. This is excellent if you have stopped part of the way through. It does take quite a long time to get through this story if you are playing along so this is a great idea.

The screen is set up to look like the open pages of a book but unlike your normal book the characters on each page move and do many different things. One thing is very consistent though - each letter page starts with the phrase Big A, Little a, What begins with A? Of course this changes depending on which letter you are on but the format is the same introducing your child to the different ways a letter can be written. There are then a list of words beginning with that letter written down and which are highlighted as Icabod and Izzy say them.

In story mode they go through each letter and we see different creatures appearing which are relevent to that letter such as an Alligator for A and a Kangeroo for K as well as the different words appearing on the screen too. Of course in totally Seuss style we also meet some wonderfully, fantastical creatures such as the Zizzer-zazzer-zuzz for Z. The stories are comical and entertaining and a great start for your child before he or she is able to use the mouse to click on things in the interactive mode while still beginning to learn their alphabet.

On the interactive playtime mode you hear the first bit of the story but then it's up to your child what he or she chooses to click on using the mouse. My son has been getting to grips with using the mouse for a couple of months now and it's amazing how quickly he has picked this up. One of his favourite pages on this activity at the moment is M which has lots of different singing mice, each of which has a different name and has a different tale to tell (no pun intended) - Mario the mambo expert is one he presses over and over as we see him do a silly little dance. R is another good one where he loves to see Rupert the red rhinocerous wiggle his rear about when it is clicked. The sound effects and music go along well with these funny and knowledgable scenes and a good example of this is when we hear bubbles bursting when a bee is buzzing inside one of them on the B page.

The ABC song is well known for anyone who used to watch Sesame Street or these days Barney and the letters light up as they are each sung by Icabod and Izzy.

There are over 600 words for your child to learn and over 400 different things to click on in order to find them. The rhinocerous' rear was one we didn't find straight away as my son clicked on his head to start with which set off a different sequence of events. Of course now he has found this funny wiggle he loves repeating the action.

As with all the Dr Seuss books this software is Americanized which might put some people off slightly as a few of the words are spelt slightly differently but on the whole this is a rare occurance and doesn't by any form spoil the fun of finding out what's going to happen on the next page. The silly rhymes come into force as with most of Dr Seuss' work and this makes us laugh as my son tries to repeat some of the tongue twisters with hilarious results at times. We have found this has helped encourage his speech as well as his recognition for letters and although he is still only 3 and a half he knows around 10-15 letters now. We feel that this product used alongside good ABC books has helped greatly. It is also a great way of getting him to use his imagination as he tries to guess what the mice's names are or what the King might do when clicked.

I would say, however, that it is an essential part of learning for parents to take a major role when presenting their children with software such as this one to encourage and praise when they see something they recognise. This is not something for you to just set your child in front of while you get some time to yourself as some parents seem to do quite a lot of. I am also aware that books are also essential for a child's development in language as well as colours, numbers and other basic skills which are picked up from this early age before the child has any real knowledge of what learning is and just feels like he or she is playing and having fun.

I cannot praise this 'game' enough and would encourage anyone with young children and a pc to have a look out for either this title or one of the others in the Dr Seuss series. Green Eggs and Ham is also available in this format for £6 from TK Maxx and we are thinking of getting it as a christmas present as this is one Dr Seuss book we haven't acquired yet. The Cat in The Hat interactive story is excellent too.

PC requirements are as follows:-

Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP
Pentium 166MHz
20 MB Hard Drive space
16MB RAM
2X CD Rom Drive or Faster
SVGA Monitor/256 Colours
Windows compatible Sound Device
Mouse

As this fits almost all computers nowadays it is an easily playable game. 

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