LÖVE2D is fantastic, wish I had known about it cause it is exactly what I was looking for when I tried to help my oldest son, thanks. When my youngest son decides he wants to do sound I will start both of them down that path.

For now I've thought a bit and it would be pretty easy for me to abstract sprites and text drawn to a canvas with clicking and keypresses so I think I will do that first when the time comes. My youngest son was EXTREMELY happy this morning and began porting letters2player to JS before school.