Review: Marsupials Down Under And Around the World
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 9, 2013
I viewed this on my iPad.  I found my viewing experience mixed as not all the facts of a chapter fit on the same page as the picture.  Even on the smallest font size and when viewed in portrait, five of the "chapters" finished on the next page.  The advantage of the iPad  is that when viewed in landscape view, when you tap the picture it expands to fill the entire screen.First may I say I didn't know so many animals had pouches.  For young children who just need pictures and a few fun facts this book will do.  However, for older children I think this misses some important facts in addition the manner in which some of the facts are arranged I found a bit haphazard.The main fact that I think was missed is what makes a marsupial without a pouch a marsupial. If marsupials young are born very early, how are they protected.When discussing the Tasmanian Devil's, it was described as being the size of a dog.  Which dog a  chihuahua or a St. Bernard, I bring this up because the picture of the Devil in the book looks like it was taken in front of some tree roots, which makes the devil look very small.When discussing the Wombat I found the 2nd paragraph confusing as at first she says the Wombat lives alone in it's own burrow and then goes on to describe how other marsupials live in colonies.  It would have been better to put the colony/city blurb either at the beginning with the general information or with one of the burrowing social marsupials.Even though I find the fact arrangements a bit sloppy and inconsistent i.e for the Tasmanian devil she says size of a dog and for the quoll she say about 2 feet long and weighs 3 pounds. It does give some interesting information.As for the illustrations, I found several of them interesting, but many of them I found a bit hazy and the photo with the quolls, I couldn't tell where one finished and the other began.For the very young I can recommend this. For an older child or any doing a report...look elsewhere.