The Kidnap Caper is the fourth title in the Mia's Big Adventure series. Each title features a familiar cast of characters. Mia is a charming mouse who lives in the attic of an old Victorian house with her Grandma Mimi. Mia's friends include Betty Bird, a stubborn and shy woodpecker; Marty, a bookish and sometimes overemotional mouse; Manfrid, Marty's father and proprietor of the local general store; and Freddy Frog, who for obvious reasons doesn't live in the attic. The Kidnap Caper also introduces a few new characters, including a lovable bat named Dingbat.

Every story needs a villain, of course, and the usual suspect is Romaine Rat. Romaine isn't really all that bad; he's just an entrepreneur who tends to let his opportunistic streak overcome his better judgment.

In this adventure, Grandma Mimi disappears just as she's about to receive her prize for winning a local art contest. Suspicion naturally falls on Romaine Rat, because the prize disappeared along with Grandma Mimi, but for once, he appears to be innocent.

While the activities help develop logic and problem-solving skills, the main focus is on learning a particular subject--in this case, a foreign language. When the adventure begins, you can choose to learn French or Spanish and select one of three levels of difficulty. From there, you'll use the mouse to navigate Mimi through a 3-D environment and a series of activities on the quest to find Grandma Mimi. Navigation can be a little tricky, and it's easy to miss some of the instructions or move too quickly past a potential clue.

A series of word games are interwoven with the activities, which is where the language lessons come in. The games use context to teach basic vocabulary and pronunciation by asking you to select the word that correctly matches an image, describe an object using adjectives, or correctly identify an action verb. The games also help teach basic sentence structure. The assumption is that it's okay if you don't understand some things, but this might be frustrating for some children.

Pros: Colorful graphics, charming characters, and an engaging storyline
Cons: Instructions are sometimes complicated and overly long, some activities are difficult to navigate