Strange and Wonderful World of Ants

© 2011 Amos Latteier
$1.99, iPad (24 MB)
Teaches: science, ants, insects, reading
CTR Rating: 94%
Editor's Choice

CTR Review

Three reading levels in the same book? Why not? While we're at it, why not let a child pick the level they like, from any page? First published in 2011, The Strange & Wonderful World of Ants is an app that keeps coming up in conversations about good eBook design. Based around pencil illustrations by Oregon-based Melinda Matson, with text and programming by Montreal-based author/publisher Amos Latteier, this app contains 29 screens that are infested with ant facts. Each screen can be changed either by a traditional left or right swipe, or by touching a line of dots on the bottom of the screen. This makes it easy to jump around in the story, or move through page by page. Features include a reading level toggle with three settings: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Only the easy level is narrated, and there is no text highlighting or touch-and-hear features. Here's the text from one of the pages, selected at random. EASY: "The babies help by making Silk. Amazing!" INTERMEDIATE: "The young larvae help by making Silk which holds leaves together. What amazing & strange child labor!" ADVANCED: "The ants bring their larvae to the construction site & squeeze them. The larvae produce silk, which holds the leaves together. What amazing & strange child labor!" As you can see, there's a nice reading choice. To change levels, children can touch a slider switch on the screen bottom. There's also an information icon with external links, and teacher resources that include a glossary, links to more ant resources and credits. You can't adjust the looping background music, which is thankfully appropriate. Sticklers for font design and text flow will note that ampersands and capital letters are used in a rather unconventional way, and there are times when the fonts flow over illustrations, making them hard to see. Nice touches include a single ant-narrator that wanders around on each page, following your finger with additional leveled ant facts or commentary, and page transitions that blend into each other. The quality of narration and illustration is high in all cases. The bottom line? This $2 app is well worth the download.