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| Little Critter must be pretty light |
| Quick Info | |
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| Reviewed by: | Mark Goninon |
| Developer: | Brøderbund, Jordan Freeman Group, Living Books, Wanderful Interactive Storybooks (1992: Brøderbund) |
| Publisher: | ZOOM Platform Media, Wanderful Interactive Storybooks (1992: Brøderbund) |
| Release Date: | 28 Aug 2025 (Original: 10 Apr 1992) |
| Time played: | 1.7 hours |
This game (although despite being sold on Steam, I really should refer to this as an "edutainment program") was part nostalgia purchase and part legitimate purchase for my 6 year-old son. Back in the early 90s, "multimedia" was all the rage. CD-ROM drives were becoming commonplace and so were sound cards for your home PC, opening the opportunities for CD-quality audio and video in your games. Bundles by companies such as sound card manufacturer Creative Labs, often included a CD-ROM drive, a sound card and a bunch of CD-ROMs to try out. My memory is hazy on which bundle Just Grandma and Me was part of or when I actually acquired it but this post on the VOGONS website suggests I probably got it sometime in 1993 as I remember all the below except for the encyclopedia and San Diego Zoo CD-ROMs:
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| Cheers Colin |
This seems to be about right since Just Grandma and Me was originally released just a year earlier. Just Grandma and Me was the first release in the "Living Books" series of edutainment software. They are interactive storybooks which not only have pictures and text like normal books, but also contain interactive hotspots often triggering funny animations or audio. The program is also able to read itself, highlighting the words in sync with the vocal delivery.
While we often take things like audio in computer games for granted nowadays, Just Grandma and Me, based off child author Mercer Mayer's 1983 book of the same name, was a revolutionary edutainment title. The program would go on to become a critical and commercial success with 4 million copies of the title being sold in seven different languages, according to Living Books creator Mark Schlichting. During the 1990s, development and publishing was handled by Brøderbund but with the release of the iPad in 2010, a new company called Wanderful Interactive was formed with the goal of porting the Living Books series to touchscreen devices. Fast forward to 2025 and Just Grandma and Me, that little CD-ROM I first tried out more than thirty years ago is available on Steam! I eventually tried it out with my 6 year-old but first, a bit of info about how the "living book" works.
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| Main Menu options |
Not your ordinary storybook
When you start up the program you can choose to read the book from four languages: English, Spanish, French and German (and they're voiced in each of these languages too). Just Grandma and Me follows the "Little Critter" from Mercer Mayer's books as he takes a trip to the beach with his Grandma. Animations will play on the first page along with a voice over by Little Critter (voiced by Aaron Schlichting for the English version, son of the creator of Living Books). After the narration is complete, the reader can then click on various hotspots on the screen which will play audio samples or provide bonus animations, such as an umbrella flying into the sky, a lifeguard blowing a whistle, or Grandma talking to Little Critter. For those wanting to place virtual stickers on the page there's also a sticker book option. The program also allows you to click on the individual words in the sentences, which helps kids sound out words at their own pace; it also allows for juvenile humour after your little kids click the word "but" for the 100th time.
After you're finished with one page, you turn the page and the process repeats itself until you reach the 12th and final page.
The program also gives you the opportunity to decorate a sandcastle and then print it on your printer, an almost anachronistic reference to a bygone era considering just about nobody has a printer connected to a desktop computer nowadays.
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| For kids wanting to do something more creative, you can always create sandcastles |
A Quality Edutainment Title
Unlike The Zwuggels, an interactive storybook that came out many years after Just Grandma and Me, I feel this program is better if you want your child to independently learn from reading the book as they can hear how the words are meant to be said and pronounced. There could be an argument made for The Zwuggels though in that not voicing the words forces the parent to sit with their child to assist reading the book for them, but this would require ground rules as a particularly impatient kid might just want to interact with the pages without even waiting for you to finish reading.
As briefly mentioned earlier, being able to click on words in the sentences and have them sounded out increases the program's effectiveness as an educational tool since it allows kids to discover how to pronounce things at their own pace. The game also runs very smoothly for an over 30 year old game and the graphics, as simple as they are, still hold up.
There's actually very little I can fault with this game/program besides the fact it might not seem like good value because reading the book and interacting with every item on every page, doesn't take long if there are only 12 pages overall.
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| There are four languages available to read and listen to |
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8
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Despite being over thirty years old, Just Grandma and Me is still a worthwhile edutainment title for young readers, giving them a chance to listen to spoken sentences and individual words while making it a fun interactive experience through hotspots on each page. Succeeds at what it's aiming to achieve. |
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