>>> EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT:  CHILDREN

     Amy's Fun 2-3 Adventure, $49.95, by Devasoft, is the first of a series
     of programs written for children ages 2 - 6.  In this particular
     program, children are introduced to counting and numbers by Amy, a
     playful puppy, who leads the child through a series of (educational)
     adventures.  With child-friendly mouse-input, overscan graphics,
     detailed animation, digitized sound and speech, and four different
     locations for Amy's adventures to take place, the package provides a
     useful introduction to the Amiga -- and to numbers -- for those who
     will inherit the future.  The 2.0-compatible program requires no
     typing, so young children can operate it themselves.

     Fern Gully Computerized Coloring Book, $29.95, by Capstone, is an
     electronic coloring book based upon the animated film "Fern Gully:  The
     Last Rainforest".  The program provides children with five backgrounds
     in which to set as many as 20 different movie characters.  They may
     then color the pictures from a 256 color palette, perhaps even using
     each picture to illustrate a story or as a 'frame' in an animation. 
     Pictures may be saved to disk, or even printed.

     FlashBlaster, $49.95, by EasyScript!, is an arcade-style game for
     teaching or reviewing the basics of arithmetic.  Designed for children
     ages 5 - 12, the program uses a variety of animations and digitized
     sounds to create an entertaining shoot 'em up that teaches as it
     pleases and rewards success with induction into the FlashBlaster Hall
     of Fame.  The program requires 1 MB of RAM and AmigaDOS 1.3 or 2.0

     Home Alone Computerized Coloring Book, $29.95, by Capstone, is another
     in Capstone's series of electronic coloring books based on popular
     films or cartoons.  The package includes 24 pictures to color, entry
     forms for Capstone's coloring contest, ideas for making a story book
     from the pictures, and suggestions how to use the movie's theme(s) to
     encourage child safety.

     Phunny Phonemes, $33, by Parth Galen, is a two-disk program intended to
     teach children ages 6 - 11 to spell and read better (in English) by
     means of phonetics or "phonics".  The software consists of a large
     number of spelling exercises to be practiced within the context of a
     game set in outer space.  Each exercise focuses on a particular English
     phonetic sound, and the words to be learned are selected accordingly. 
     Also provided are a series of 16 "lectures" on phonics, delivered by
     cartoon characters; an 80 page manual; and 6 extra utility programs. 
     Phunny Phonemes requires 1 MB of RAM.

     Rock-A-Doodle Computerized Coloring Book, $29.95, by Capstone, is the
     third in a series of electronic coloring books based on recent movies
     or animated features.  The themes of this program are:  friendship,
     courage, accepting one's feelings and rock-and-roll.  The Coloring Book
     provides children a number of background scenes from the movie, into
     which they can place -- and color -- various characters from the show.
     Also included are tips about making puppets and musical instruments, as
     well as story books illustrated with pictures created within the
     program.  As with the other Capstone Coloring Books, all pictures may
     be saved to disk or printed (each program supports over 150 printers!).

     >>> EDUCATION: GENERAL, YOUTH & ADULT

     Bible Scholar, $ 149.95, by EasyScript!, is an upgraded version of
     their Bible study program.  One enhancement is a smart map feature that
     provides the user a listing of verses pertaining to a given
     geographical area -- all from a simple mouse-click on a map location. 
     Other improvements include a work pad for combining and expanding the
     library of topical references, and a context search to find any
     combination of words in seconds.  The Bible Scholar provides a Kind
     James version of the Word, together with a topic's list and
     concordance.

     Bible Search, $100, by SOGWAP, is a serious, if not champion, contender
     for the title of "fastest search" in the competition between Bible
     programs -- regardless of platform!  The program is available in either
     the King James or NIV versions, each of which is compressed onto only
     two disks.  The search engine allows full Boolean searches ('and',
     'or', 'not') for single or multiple words, while the program itself
     provides up to 8 different 'bookmarks' for noting specific locations
     within the text.  A third disk contains an exhaustive English
     concordance (over 700K references), and a demo version may be purchased
     for only $5.

     Castle of Dr. Brain, $49.95, by Sierra On-line, is an educational
     odyssey through such topics as time, logic, mathematics, robotics, and
     codes by young adventurers striving to become Dr. Brain's lab
     assistant.  The position is available only to those who successfully
     navigate Dr. Brain's puzzle-filled castle, solving each puzzle and
     applying its lessons to later problems.  The program has three levels,
     a number of hand-painted background, and hard-rock music soundtrack.

     FingerTalk, $35, by The Puzzle Factory, is an interactive tutorial
     program for teaching the fingerspelling hand signs for all 26 letters
     of the alphabet, together with the numbers 1-9.  These hand signs are
     part of the American Sign Language for the hearing-impaired.  The
     program teaches from one of five user-selectable modes:  games, speed,
     control, text files and tips for easy practice and quick learning.

     Pride's Guide to Educational Software, $25, by Crossway Books, provides
     the reader with an overview of educational software, five glossaries of
     computer terminology, and reviews of more than 750 educational products
     for either PC, Mac, or Amiga platforms.  In its overview, the book
     introduces and discusses not only the concept of educational software,
     but also such topics as software publishers, computer hardware and
     peripherals, and multi-media.

     StudyWare for the GRE, $49.95, by StudyWare, is a computerized version
     of the Cliff's GRE Preparation Guide.  What is the GRE?  It is the
     Graduate Record Exam, a broad-based examination of a student's academic
     knowledge, skills and abilities; it is becoming very rare to find a
     university in the States that does not require students to take the GRE
     as a prerequisite for admission to graduate studies in any field.  This
     program represents an effort to integrate one of the more popular
     guides for preparing for the GRE -- Cliff's GRE Preparation Guide (also
     included in the package) -- with the power of a computer to educate. 
     The program estimates the student's abilities in 22 areas, graphs them
     and helps the student overcome his or her deficiencies.  Also included
     are 2 StudyWare and 2 Cliff's full-length simulated GRE exams, for
     additional practice and evaluation; an on-line glossary, and a report
     function, so the student can chart his or her progress.

     TNT: The New Testament, $39.95, by Shocking Software, is a two-disk,
     King James version of the New Testament.  The program multi-tasks, has
     fast screen scrolling, prints selected text, includes a bookmark
     function, and has two different search options: one, a quick word or
     phrase search; the other for locating words or phrases that do not
     contain a specific string.  The program also supplies a useful word-
     frequency list, so users can see which words were used most or least
     often by New Testament authors.

     Voyager 1.1, $124.95 (upgrade for $20), by Carina, is an enhanced
     version of the fascinating astronomy program imported from the
     MacIntosh world.  Among its new features are:  PAL support, overscan,
     and display of pictures of astronomical objects from within the
     program.  For readers who do not recall the earlier version of Voyager,
     an earlier edition of NewsFlash described it as follows:
         "Voyager:  The Dynamic Sky Simulator ($99.95), by Carina, is a
     'port' of the popular astronomy program for the MacIntosh computer.  It
     allows the user to simulate the sky for any time and any location,
     permitting the study of Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings, black holes
     and quasars.  Even the Voyager missions can be recreated or Halley's
     comet tracked and followed.  Requiring 1 MB of RAM, the program was
     designed for speed and ease of use (its makers claim that it runs
     faster on a stock A500 or A2000 than do competing programs on an
     A3000!), and it includes a database of 11,000 space objects.  For those
     who are very serious about their astronomy, Carina offers two extension
     disks, with others on the way.  Data Extension Disk 1 includes another
     17,000 stars (from magnitudes 6.5 - 7.5) and over 3,000 deep sky
     objects.  Data Extension Disk 2 includes over 62,000 stars (from
     magnitude 7.6 to 8.5), and requires 2 MB of RAM and a hard drive (an
     accelerated machine is recommended, though not required).  What makes
     this program unique among astronomy programs is its ability to view the
     sky from any point within the solar system, looking 'back' at Earth
     from, say, Neptune (this author looks forward to the next generation of
     astronomy programs that will take advantage of the '030 and '040 CPUs,
     so the user can view the Sun from Sirius, or the Milky Way from
     Andromeda.  The more powerful processors will also allow programmers to
     create new generations of the "Star Trek" genre games having 
     considerably more realism).  Among the program's other features are
     such delights as a 3-D animated view of the stars lying within 30 light
     years of the Sun, or of the planets as they circle the Sun; a detailed
     map of the Moon, and the abilities to save any screen as an IFF image
     or to print star maps for any time and place on Earth."

     World Atlas 2.5, $59.95, by Centaur, is an upgraded and enhanced
     version of the program supplying historical, geographic, political, and
     cultural information on over 170 countries.  Enhancements not only
     include updates of the profound political changes taking place
     throughout the globe, but also WorkBench 2.0 compatibility, an ARexx
     port, easy hard drive installation, and faster overall performance (it
     was completely rewritten in 'C').  Owners of earlier versions of World
     Atlas may purchase an upgrade for $10.

     World Tour, $39 per country/continent, by Designing Minds, is a series
     of games intended to broaden and improve the geographical knowledge of
     both children and adults.  In addition to 'touring' a given country or
     continent, the player will learn a variety of details about each nation
     -- details such as currency, flags, capitals, rainfall, religions,
     languages, etc.  Current games available include:  Europe, Canada,
     South America, the Middle East, and Africa -- but other programs are
     'in the works'.

     Worldwide Maps and More Worldwide Maps, $39.95 each, by Digital Designs
     Group, together provide 440 files of maps for all 50 US states, Canada,
     Africa, the Middle East, and Asia -- in land-area, world or global
     formats.