Crayola Color a Story in 3D

Crayola and IBM have recently teamed up to join the creativity market. This is a highly competitive market and I am surprised Crayola has not entered this arena before. While the Crayola products are fairly good, I would expect more from a company who has been the uncontested leader in crayon production for generations! This latest program is for kids ages five and older. Stories included on this CD are Gulliver's Travels, The Trojan Horse and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Your children can choose any of the three stories to listen to as they color. Remember the days of laying on the floor coloring while your mom read you a story? This is a high tech version without the cuddling and without the mother or warm fuzzy feelings. If you kids like to color, they will enjoy filling in the pictures on each page of the book (20 per story.) I have one particular child who really enjoys coloring books and programs where you fill in the large areas of a picture with paint cans and crayons. This is the essence of the program. As each page is read your children can color the picture using two size crayons, a paint bucket and fifty three different crayons along with a dozen or so textures. The textures make the pictures look very nice. Each page is actually a 3-dimensional picture. It is not fully 3D, but has a definite 3D look when it is colored. When your children use the crayons to color an area of the picture, the computer keeps their drawing within the lines so the final picture looks very nice. Some parents would cringe at this idea as "keeping in the lines" is a no-no, but it is nice in that some of the pictures are quite detailed. Most kids over the age of five do start to care if their coloring is within the lines, so I wouldn't worry too much about this creating great emotional scars for your kids. Will it develop their creativity? Probably not too much. Will it expose them to some great literature? Yes. I was pleased to see that the choice of stories was high quality and not mind deadening even if they are scaled down versions of the stories.

A slide show is included for each story with pictures that are already colored. Your children can add their own pictures to this slide show as well for their own personally created productions. The CD stories, told by Odds Bodkin can be played on a regular CD player as well. Included on the CD are ideas for parents who want to extend the learning experience away from the computer screen. Ideas for literary studies, art projects and games are included. If you kids just want to color, there is a "Scribble Pad" area included where a blank screen allows them to experiment with the art tools included.

While this program will not knock you off your feet with it's kid appeal, it is a fair program with redeeming value in that your children will become familiar with wonderful stories as they play. If you are looking for an art/creativity program, keep looking. If, on the other hand, you want to have your children learn about great literature and they happen to enjoy coloring and painting, this will appeal to your family.

Grading for Crayola Color a Story in 3D

Educational Value: 3
Entertainment Value: 2
Use of medium: 21/2
Dollar Value: 4
Age- 5+

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