The rise and fall of the company behind Reader Rabbit (2018)

Summary

Each May, as the elementary school year was winding down, our teachers would send us home with a new educational CD-ROM — hoping, I assume, that it would keep our young brains from rotting away during the lazy summer months. As a result, I spent many a 100-degree Texas day indoors, glued to our family’s outdated computer monitor. One year, I helped Reader Rabbit salvage the town play after it was sabotaged by an angry chipmunk; another, I joined the Cluefinders to traverse the Numerian jungle and defeat a mysterious winged monster known as “Mathra.” I bought new costumes by solving addition problems, unlocked ancient gates by pairing synonymous words, even hitched a ride with a flock of birds after brushing up on U.S. geography.Little did I know, the real drama was happening off-screen. Both Reader Rabbit and Cluefinders were the work of The Learning Company (TLC), a dominant player in the realm of educational software during its peak in the late 1980s and ’90s. At a certain point, TLC owned pretty much every computer game that mattered to millennials: The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, even Oregon Trail. But by 2000, the company was in financial shambles — and, in what was labeled one of the worst business deals of all time, almost took a Fortune 500 company down with it.“It’s a fascinating story,” said Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children's Technology Review. “It attracted pioneers both in the business sense and the education sense. A lot of educators could see quickly how powerful the medium was for giving kid instant feedback. That alone was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s like the Holy Grail of learning.’”Perhaps appropriately, then, it all started with an ex-nun.“The programs I designed were done to lead kids towards the answer, rather than punish them for not getting it the first time round.”— Leslie Grimm, The Learning Company co-founderFor six years, Ann McCormick was a sister of St. Joseph of the Peace in Washington sta...