He’s Still Curious and He Wants Kids to Be Too

My friend Hope sums up the philosophy of life in Italy this way: “If you are going to have a meal, you might as well have it on a beautiful plate.”

It’s an attractive philosophy, one that could easily be applied to computer learning programs for kids: They might as well be aesthetically pleasing.

Two new CD-ROMs based on the wonderful “Curious George” books certainly fit the bill.

George, for those who did not have the pleasure of being introduced to the series as children, is a mischievous monkey whose curiosity is forever getting him into hot water. He was created in 1941 by artist H.A. Rey and his wife, writer Margret E. Rey, who escaped war-torn Paris and landed in New York with little money but lots of imagination.

H.A. died in 1977, after finishing seven of the hugely successful “Curious George” books. Margret, who kept tight control over the vast franchise, died just before Christmas at the age of 90.

The CD-ROMs are published by Houghton Mifflin, which put out the Rey books. “Early Learning Adventure,” aimed at the 2 to 5 age group, teaches lessons in identifying shapes and colors, rhyming words and logic. “ABC Adventure,” for ages 3 to 6, is geared toward identifying the letters of the alphabet.

The learning is accomplished through game play. In “Early Learning Adventure,” the child is called upon to listen to a song that stops periodically so that he or she can fill in a word that rhymes. One song starts, “Going to ride that old dusty range today, I loaded up some grub and a bale of . . . “ The kid has to choose between an ear of corn or stack of hay. (With luck, they won’t notice the song doesn’t make a lot of sense).

In “ABC Adventure,” one game has kids identifying letters skywritten across the screen by George, who has snuck onto an airplane.

These kind of games were being played by kids in homes and schools long before computers got personal. They are also far from new to the digital realm; back in the late 1980s, Los Angeles teacher Jan Davidson had the idea that kids might be more willing to learn basic math if exercises resembled computer games. Her “Math Blaster” software game spawned a multimillion-dollar company as well as a new genre of computer games.

The “Curious George” CDs stand out thanks to their superior graphic artwork. George is the same impish character--almost always smiling, even when getting into a bit of trouble--as in the books, and the other characters, including the man with the big yellow hat, are also faithfully rendered. They all live in H.A.’s brightly colored world, which makes city life seem endlessly adventurous.

These CD-ROMs, priced at $39.95 each for either Macintosh or Windows, do not convey Margret’s lovely stories, but they do provide a nice setting in which a kid can pick up a few handy lessons.

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