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For this product review, we received three interactive electronic books, Glaciers, A Lion's World, and There Once Was a Cowpoke Who Swallowed an Ant from Weigl Publishers.

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[ctt template=”4″ link=”Je3dh” via=”yes” ]A product review of three interactive electronic books: Glaciers, A Lion's World, and There Once Was a Cowpoke Who Swallowed an Ant from Weigl Publishers.[/ctt]

Weigl Publishers Interactive Electronic Books – A Review of 3 Titles

These are electronic books provided in PDF format, so I received a code for this review through following the instructions on a page in the electronic book to use it. The digital code unlocks multimedia content, including audio, videos, weblinks, slideshows, and activities. You get access to this for as long as it is up and running on their site. Pretty much indefinitely. The three electronic books we received are:

Glaciers from the series “Earth's Water” published under our imprint Lightbox and intended for a grades 3-6 interest range.
A Lion's World belonging to our “EyeDiscover” series, intended for a K-2 interest range.
There Once Was a Cowpoke Who Swallowed an Ant, a fiction title, intended for a K-2 interest range.

Weigl Publishers Inc. and Smartbook Media Inc., part of the Weigl Publishers Group of Companies, provide innovative, high-quality learning resources for educators and students in the United States and around the world. They have over 500 titles to choose from! The digital strategy called AV² was the first media enhanced book product in the educational market. AV² has fiction and non-fiction titles in standard subjects like math, social studies, and science, as well as several hundred K-2 Spanish books. The EyeDiscover imprint, released by Weigl Publishers in 2016 provides exceptional interactive online content with full-screen videos accompaning each 2-page spread online as the text is read aloud. The fully-digital product called Lightbox was launched in 2015 by Smartbook Media Inc. Lightbox is the ultimate interactive, multi-media, curriculum-based solution for PreK–12 learning. Here is a video about it:

How we used it:

I had my children sit at our large computer screen so that we could all see what was going on. I found the code and entered it on their website in the appropriate box. It was easy to navigate each viewing area. My children doing the review were Maris, my 6th grade son and Miranda, my 1st grade daughter.

Glaciers

Glaciers is from the series, “Earth's Water” and is published under an imprint Lightbox. It is intended for grades 3-6. My son, Maris, thought it wouldn't be too bad to be a glaciologist and he didn't think he would mind the cold weather. I believe him too, because he always wants to wear shorts and summer shoes in our cold and snowy Wisconsin, USA winters!

Many facts are given and there is a place you can click to hear the story be read, as well. The photographs are amazing and you feel like you are there in person by looking at them.

Miranda was a little young for this one, being only in first grade, but she did stay with it and listened and looked at the screen. When I asked questions afterwards, however, she didn't remember too much of what was said. She was really surprised by the picture with the guy jumping over the gorge and wondered if someone would fall doing that.

There were some things I didn't know about glaciers, so it was interesting for me to read and listen to as well. There are extra videos you can click to watch and we watched an iceberg move and break apart. That was very interesting and something we certainly don't see everyday! It's like bringing the book to life, right in my dining room.

A Lion's World

We also reviewed A Lion's World which belongs to the “EyeDiscover” series, it is intended for a K-2 interest range. Miranda was really into this one! She absolutely loves all cats! It doesn't matter how big or wild they are. She would just love to pet those cubs.

This is like a picture book because it has large writing and fewer than two sentences on each page, which makes it very easy for young readers to read. She likes to put her finger on the screen to try to read the words. There were a lot of words she couldn't quite read yet. We also listened to the book being read to us. There are quite a few pages to look at. The photography is amazing. It makes me want to leave the picture up on the screen and sketch it. You can see all the details, and individual hairs and color spots on the baby lions. Very good picture quality. I like that my children learn about lions in this way. Maris, my 6th grader, was not as impressed with this one as he felt he already learned enough about lions.

There Once Was a Cowpoke Who Swallowed an Ant

This silly fictional tall tale story is intended for a K-2 interest range, but it was so enjoyable that all three of us enjoyed this one! I read through the book the first time in my best “cowboy song” voice, then the second time, we had the program read it to us and my kids actually gave me a compliment and said they liked my reading better! I really thought the reader (who must have been a voice actor) did a good job, but I do like to hear compliments! After the first time we read the story, I asked my children questions and we all thought it was pretty funny and wondered what it would be like to eat all that stuff. I said I probably couldn't even get my mouth open wide enough to eat the spider, much less an armadillo! Here I am trying to get my mouth open real wide…

In this tall tale, the cowboy keeps eating more critters that he is hoping will take care of the discomfort he feels inside him. The story really gets silly when the cowboy figures out the problem is not being fixed and he takes matters into his own hands and somehow eats himself! Only in a tall tale, right? This story is sure to get your kids laughing! Great illustrations too. I love the lizard the best.

Miranda's Opinion

My favorite book was the lion one. Those babies are so cute, I just want to hold them! The glacier story was okay, I like to click and watch the videos, that was neat. The cowboy story was really silly, nobody could do that. I like to hear my Mom read it in her cowboy voice, she's funny. I think my friends at 4-H would like to get these books on their computer too.

Maris' Opinion

Yeah, it was good, except the lion one was kind of boring because I already know all that. The glaciers are cool. The cowboy story is funny. I like to be by myself with my headphones on and listen to the glacier and cowboy one.

My Opinion

I really like that you have the option to hear the story be read or that you can read it for yourself. Sometimes I like to read and sometimes I like to have the kids read and sometimes I like to be read to and this company really caters to me with that. I am really amazed at the photography and research that went into the Glaciers book and I am thinking I would like to see more of their work in the “Earth's Water” series. The price is reasonable considering you get to have this for just about ever and I could use it with my younger children, Mason and Mitchell. It's actually about as much as a hardcover book from a bookstore, but I get to choose to have it read to me if I want! You should check it out, I think you will enjoy it in your homeschool too.