Description:
Do you feel it's important that your 3-year-old learn the word buttocks? Some software designer out there does. Mediocre to miserable best describes the range of options within this four CD-ROM suite of toddlers' software. Some of the programs have one or two decent elements, but the good bits are drowned in a sea of puzzling design, technical glitches, and surreal elements that would be hilarious if they weren't being marketed at your child. Here's a breakdown of the madness: BabyWOW! is the first CD-ROM. This selection mimics DK Learning's style with photographic images, and a noncluttered format that takes on the basics like colors, words, shapes, and counting. The problem with BabyWOW! is that on some systems the program lurks on the lower right side of the screen, half-inaccessible, even with the correct settings. The technical support page mentioned in an installation guide (www.support@babywow.com) didn't exist when we searched for it, a BabyWOW Web site offered no hints, and there was no troubleshooting guide on the disc itself. Once we found a system that allowed us to access most of the program's introductory screen, we found a benign educational program with 10 activities that can take place in eight different languages. BabyWOW! manages counting to 10, and labeling images of cheese, sand, and trains accurately. However, the program fails in the colors department--it will tell your child with some authority that the brownish color on the screen is in fact red. Parental guidance is suggested. The second CD-ROM is Buddy Brush and the Painted Playhouse. Buddy is a mop-headed, nonspeaking paintbrush that inhabits a clickable playhouse. The best thing about Buddy Brush is its musicality. The original score is playable on a regular CD player, and the harp flourishes, woodwind trills, and guitar twangs will engage young ears. The worst thing about Buddy Brush is that his playhouse is random yet boring. Exploring the house by using the mouse yields changeable pictures, couches with patterns kids can manipulate, musical instruments, and the ubiquitous click-and-paint scenes. Buddy Brush's creators probably made this program devoid of spoken or written words to facilitate freeform exploration, but the playhouse contains dead ends and repetition. The escape key was the only way out we could find once we tired of painting with our six color choices. The third selection in this set is the CD-ROM equivalent of Styrofoam shipping peanuts. This filler is promisingly entitled The Elephant on Aisle Four. It appears to be a home page for a singer named Lisa Atkinson. Here you and your eager kid will find a printable maze and two printable pictures to color--wow! Plus a few MP3 clips: a poem and two kids' songs that have absolutely nothing to do with elephants. The marketing material that describes this CD-ROM lists songs galore, but we didn't find them. Instead we found a link to a catalog, and we didn't want our toddler to go shopping so we moved on. And we found buttocks. Imagine Pokémon going educational and you've the fourth CD-ROM. Smiletown is from a company called Gakugei in Japan. A handful of cute critters--including a yellow thing that looks like an earless Pikachu--guide kids through 12 activities with names like ABC Dance, Number Fun, and Lots of Words. In Body Parts, kids are told that characters are hurt on certain parts, and they must identify and click on said part, after which a healing Band-Aid is applied. Sure enough, someone needs a Band-Aid on the bottom, and a bright computer voice intones "buttocks!" when the proper spot is clicked. Smiletown is a surreal little place: the graphic for choosing English as one of the four possible languages is a backward American flag. Phrases like "Let's go to the disco!" abound. A cute squirrel fishes a jellyfish from a pond and kids must decide if it's a car, a doll, a hamburger, a yo-yo, or a jellyfish. Toddler Play & Learn is a great way to teach your child where his or her buttocks are. That's about it. (Ages 2 to 4) --Anne Erickson
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