I bought this CD-Rom a year ago, in preparation for my young son's inevitable interest in computers. I had no idea what it did, what games it had, etc. When my 4-year old son put it in the computer for the first time, I was blown away. It is so much more than the review indicates. This core of the disc is the Cat In The Hat story, but the level of interaction is awesome. On each page, you first hear/see the story. When the narrator is finished reading (or the characters are finished talking) on that page, you get to play. You can click on every single image on the page and it does something creative and entertaining. And not just the characters. I'm talking the floor, the doors, the window shades...even the stairs. Long after my son and I had started playing and I'd been through each page dozens (maybe hundreds) of times, he discovered new things to click on that were even more enteratining than those I'd shown him. For example, in the page showing Thing 1 and Thing 2 flying their kites in the hall, if you click on the stairs it starts moving like an escalator, mall "muzac" starts playing, and Thing 1 and Thing 2 appear on the escalator as shoppers, saying, respectively, "I've sure got a lot of things to return," and "I've sure got a lot of things to destroy." This program is absolutely darling, and you grown-ups won't mind being called over to the computer repeatedly when your little one announces, "Mom, look what happens when I click on the Cat's hat!"
In terms of age-range, it's perfect for a first-time exposure to computers, yet I believe it would appeal to older children as well. My son, who just turned 4, had never used a computer before, and yet in no time he was navigtating by himself and clicking on everything in sight. He even found out how to shut the program down before it ends, whereas I had been using control-alt-delete! At the same time, my boyfriend's 10-year old and his friends can't keep from looking over my son's shoulder and excitedly telling him to "click on the fish! click on the bed!"
Graphically, I don't have a lot of experience with this type of software, but the program is completely animated. It's not just static pictures of the story-book pages. The animation is along the lines of the 1971 Cat In The Hat Original TV Series DVD (which tells a different story, but is another must-have!).
Educationally, I can't give an opinion because my son hasn't started to read yet and isn't too interested in the words yet. But I do know that it seems to have the same abilities and features as Leap Pad books: it shows the written storybook as it narrates the animation, highlighting each word as it is read, and it repeats the words if your child clicks on them (with some funny variations).
All in all, a wonderful, entertaining program for both children and their parents who will endure its endless repetitions!
Phyllis K. Hansen