Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has expanded the originals library of its SVOD learning app Curious World with two new animated series—Through the Woods from The Fred Rogers Company and Melia and Jo from the creators of hit PBS KIDS show Peg + Cat.
Debuting today, Through the Woods marks The Fred Rogers Company’s first foray into original programming for mobile devices.
In each episode of the short-form series, a young boy named Rider and his canine companion, Wolfie, journey to their backyard woods on the lookout for adventures.
The series encourages respect for nature, self-guided play, sharing new experiences and curiosity, which in turn, are aimed to inspire kids’ off-screen learning and ignite their interests in the environment.
Melia and Jo, meanwhile, is the first new series from Peg + Cat creators Billy Aronson and Jennifer Oxley. The STEAM-focused series follows five-year-old best friends who are inspired by two iconic women in US history—fearless pilot Amelia Earhart and singer/entertainer Josephine Baker.
In each episode, tech-savvy inventor Melia and natural performer Jo meet in a backyard lab and use their combined skills in STEM and the arts to collaborate on creations that make the world a better place.
Oxley and Aronson’s Peg + Cat also embraced STEM learning, but with an emphasis on math. To date, it has won multiple Emmys, a Parents’ Choice Gold Award and Kidscreen Awards for Best New Series and Best Animated Series.
The Fred Rogers Company, for its part, has won 17 Emmys for its PBS Kids series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Peg + Cat and Odd Squad.
The new shows bring Curious World’s growing lineup of original kids series to more than 60, as the service competes in the crowded children’s streaming video space with major players such as Netflix and Amazon, as well as emerging ones like Hopster and PlayKids.
Launched in 2015, Curious World offers more than 1,200 pieces of content spanning original IPs, licensed programming, games and books for iOS devices or AppleTV.
The platform also recently surpassed one million downloads in the US.