Library of Congress Adds New Interactive Online Game to Read.gov Reading-Promo Web Site
A new interactive game, called “Readers to the Rescue,” is now available on the Library of Congress’s reading-promotion website,www.Read.gov. Its interactive nature interests anyone keen about online games. They can choose more online games at https://sickodds.com/lol as well.
The game, developed by students at the Laycock Center for Creativity & Collaboration at Brigham Young University, is a visual game set inside a library inhabited by a cast of storybook characters, among them Pinocchio, Humpty-Dumpty and Sleeping Beauty. Users are asked to “rescue” characters who have been stolen from the book’s pages by placing other book “heroes” in the blank spaces in a story, which results in one of 36 possible short animated films. At the end, readers are able to unlock a classic children’s online book to read.
“Readers to the Rescue” is a collaborative project of the Library of Congress, Brigham Young University and the Ad Council. To create the game, BYU’s Laycock Center brought together students from advertising, animation, film, graphic design, music and theater. In just two months they came up with the format for the game, designed all of the characters and created the 36 mini films.
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t doesn’t matter where you read, it matters that you read,” said Jeff Sheets, director of the Laycock Center. “We tried to use the same technology that takes these kids away from reading to bring them back to reading.”
Among the 36 books that users can unlock are “The Arabian Knights,” “Dracula,” “Anne of Green Gables,” “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” “The Secret Garden” and “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” For younger readers there are “Rapunzel,” “Pinocchio,” “The Three Bears” and “Snow White,” among others.
Direct to “Readers to the Rescue”
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.