 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines for companies and organizations. (March 2013) |
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| Founded | 2010 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Novato, California |
Key people | Jordan Freeman Mickey W. Mantle Mark Schlichting |
| Products | Interactive Storybook Apps |
| Website | www.wanderfulstorybooks.com |
Wanderful Interactive Storybooks is a developer of interactive storybook apps based on the titles originally published as Living Books by Broderbund Software.
The company was founded in 2010 by Mickey W. Mantle, who oversaw the original Living Books technology development as Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technical Officer at Broderbund.[1]
Mantle, CEO of Wanderful, assembled a small team of the original Broderbund programmers to create a new engine that could take the animation, graphics, sound and music from the original Living Books CD-ROMs and play them back at full-screen resolution on the iPad using a touch, rather than a mouse driven interface.[1] Mark Schlichting – creator[2] of the Living Books series – joined the team as Chief Creative Officer and developed touch-driven updates to the original mouse-driven interface.
Through a number of corporate mergers, the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had acquired the rights to the Living Books titles and content.[3] Wanderful bought the rights from HMH to republish the original games, as well as new and updated versions, and concurrently partnered with many of the authors of the individual stories that became Living Books.
Wanderful was acquired by the Jordan Freeman Group in January 2023.[4][5] On May 17, 2023, the acquisition was made official, along with Freeman's announcement of a partnership with Arthur creator, Marc Brown.[6]
- ^ a b Rose, Michael (October 8, 2012). "Brøderbund's Living Books return for iPad via Wanderful". Retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ^ Burdick, Katherine. "Interview with Mark Schlichting". EAR.org. Education Apps Review. Retrieved 29 March 2013.
- ^ Greenfield, Jeremy (June 18, 2012). "Vintage Enhanced E-Books for Your Hip Kids: Living Books, Back to Life". Digital Book World. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
- ^ https://www.linkedin.com/company/wanderful
- ^ https://www.zoom-platform.com/news/wanderful-interactive-storybooks-exclusives-soft-launch
- ^ https://venturebeat.com/games/jordan-freeman-group-acquires-wanderful-and-partners-with-arthur-creator/