Previous Next

Mr Men books, ugh! Besides their obvious sexist bias, the story content never appealed to me. Why do young children love them?

I can appreciate that their simplicity is attractive, but how boring having to read them time and time again to my three-year old.

I was aware that certain lesser computers had versions of Mr Men programs but I always congratulated myself on my choice of Atari because such programs were not for it.

Well, Mirrorsoft has produced an Atari version ot the highly-successful set of programs First Steps With The Mr. Men.

With fear I loaded them, dreading the possibility that the magic moments I spend with my children learning Logo might be invaded by little fat man that had recently ruined the bedtime reading session.

There are four games in the set. They feature Mr. Greedy, Mr. Silly and Mr. Forgetful.

The Great Ice Cream Hunt involves the child directing Mr. Greedy around the screen to find a specially enormous ice cream. It gets harder both for the child and Mr. Greedy as he collects ice creams. Decisions have to be made about which way to send Mr. Greedy.

This is similar to early Logo-like activities and helps the child to grasp the concepts of direction while they control the computer.

The game is fun and much to my surprise the little Mr. Man is quite charming and seems well suited to the computer environment.

Mr. Silly's hat game is a simple matching activity. Mr. Silly chooses a hat and the child has to find it on the shelves.

Again it is fun, and the child who showed me how to operate it was quite content playing the game for a considerable period. The colour and graphics are what you would expect from an Atari game and the program loaded and ran without any difficulty.

Mr. Forgetful has to play the next two games. They are similar to the card game where you turn cards over and have to remember where pairs are. The child has to match up pairs of socks, shoes, roller skates and the like.

There are two rows of cupboards, six in each row, and the child directs Mr. Forgetful to look into a cupboard.

One of the pair will be in the cupboard, and the child has to find the other half while accumulating knowledge about what's in the other cupboards.

This matching activity is extended to letters in the next game. The Mr. Men set of programs from Mirrorsoft are really good for young children. They provide a relevant use for the computer both at home and in school, providing the child with simple matching and pre-reading activities. They do this in a fun way.

It is good to see that thoughtful educational principles have been adhered to and that at last the little fat men have a useful task to perform.

They might leave story books alone, although I doubt it.