An interactive storybook (or CD-ROM storybook,) is a children's story packaged with animated graphics, sound or other
interactive
Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but m ...
elements (e.g., word pronunciation). Such stories are usually published as
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
on
CD-ROMs. They have also been referred to as computer books
, picture book programs,
books-on-disk, talking books,
[http://pdf.textfiles.com/zines/CGW/1992_07_issue96.pdf ] or living books
.
This software is targeted at young readers (usually kindergarten to second grade) for educational purposes.
In their seminal work ''To Instruct and Delight: Children's and Young Adults' Literature on CD-ROM'', H. Bennett wrote, "Something magical and non-threatening happens when a children's story weds a computer."
Children's Tech Review wrote that when a children's book comes to a touch screen, it can be called many names, including: “ebooks,” “living books,” “digital story books,” or even “app books.”
Examples
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Disney's Animated Storybook
''Disney's Animated Storybook'' (stylized as ''Disney's Animated StoryBook'', and also known as ''Disney's Story Studio'') is a point-and-click adventure interactive storybook video game series based on Walt Disney feature animations and Pixar f ...
*
Europress Bookshelf
*
Living Books
''Living Books'' is a series of interactive read-along adventures aimed at children aged 3–9. Created by Mark Schlichting, the series was mostly developed by Living Books for CD-ROM and published by Broderbund for Mac OS and Microsoft Windo ...
*
Magic Tales
''Magic Tales'' is a series of interactive storybooks for children, developed by Animation Magic and produced by Davidson, which were distributed by Capitol Multimedia, Inc. on CD-ROM for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows. The series was introduc ...
*
Playtoons
''Playtoons'' is a series of linked games, released in 1994, which allow players to make their own animations using a variety of characters, backgrounds, scenery and props from either a single game or a mixture from the full series. The games ar ...
*
Reader Rabbit's Reading Development Library
Pitfalls
There are studies indicating that some students will simply "cruise through" a story, either just playing with the graphics or not trying to read it themselves.
[Lefever-Davis, Shirley, and Cathy Pearman. "Early readers and electronic texts: CD-ROM storybook features that influence reading behaviors." The Reading Teacher 58.5 (Feb 2005): 446-9.]
References
External links
Reframing research and literacy pedagogy relating to CD narratives: Addressing 'radical change' in digital age literature for children* http://www.schwimmenlernenimnetz.de/veroeffentlichungen/holue_adventure.pdf
Children's literature
Children's educational video games
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