Oceanhouse Media have added yet another interactive ebook to their Smithsonian Backyard Series of ebooks designed to tell kids all about the animals that live in – or near – their backyards.

This one is called “Alligator at Saw Grass Road”, written by Janet Halfman and illustrated by Lori Anzalone and is all about the problems facing a mother alligator in protecting her eggs and then her young from the numerous predators out there who want to eat them.

In passing I am a bit concerned at the idea of having an alligator living in one’s backyard, but I suppose if you live in Florida……..

Anyhow, this ebook shows by means of rather fine illustrations and a simple text how the mother alligator deals with all those problems, and answers a lot of the questions kids who live in alligator infested regions might well have about the hows and whats of alligator life.

It is currently being offered at a special introductory price of $1.99, which seems pretty good value to me.

As with all of this particular series of ebooks, this one is carefully checked by the good folk at the Smithsonian Institute for accuracy, so you wont be giving your kids any false information if you read this ebook to, or with them.. Good to know I feel.

As with all ebooks from Oceanhouse Media, this one is designed to be read in a number of ways, and has a load of sensible functions to increase both the pleasure and the usefulness of reading this ebook, as you will see from the following specifications:

Three ways to read this omBook (Oceanhouse Media digital book):

• * “Read to Me” — listen to the narrated story with words highlighted as they are read
• * “Read it Myself” — read the book in its traditional form
• * “Auto Play” — plays like a movie, automatically reading and turning pages. Great for younger children!

Additional Features:

• * Picture / Word association — words zoom up and are spoken when pictures are touched
• * Individual words highlight and are read aloud when tapped
• * Professional audio narration
• * Background music and sound effects
• * Pages pan & zoom to accentuate the beautiful, original artwork

• * This ‘Universal App’ is optimized for Retina displays and the iPad

This ebook , called an ebook App is designed to be read on either an iPad or an iPhone, so not on a Kindle, Sony, Nook or any other dedicated ereader.

Further, it is the latest in a whole series of such ebook Apps from Oceanhouse Media, and it is well worth having a look at some of the other ones, as they are actually rather fun, and reliably informative at the same time, as you can see from this video which gives a brief but adequate demonstration of what you get when you buy one of these ebooks from them.

 Enhanced and interactive ebooks – Problems?

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I have often written about such ebooks and have explained why I am not really in favour of children’s books being treated to the full enhancement and interactive treatment. But those reservations are aimed at creating interactive versions of kid’s stories, such as Alice or Peter Pan or any novel aimed at kids. But when it comes to ebooks such as this one, I am perfectly happy for them to have as many enhancements and interactive functions as needed, as they are not intended to be flights of fantasy, but in fact small highly specific encyclopedias or teaching tools, a very different purpose.

So, where to get this ebook: You can buy it online here.

Price: Special introductory price: $1.99

Share with us:

Have you used any of Oceanhouse Media’s ebook Apps with your kids? If so, how did you find them? Fun and useful, or not? Do share your feelings on this