A free and unabridged but bug-ridden and under-featured edition of Kipling’s classic animal tale.
After an opening view of mongoose and cobra facing off that is free of any author or illustrator attribution, readers are plunged into the rhymed prologue and subsequent story. They are unlikely, however, to get more than halfway through the 70 pages before the app crashes. Along with providing a leafy frame to each screen, Pearson highlights random words in the text and adds occasional stiff, stylized animal figures by way of illustrations. Though some of those figures, plus the occasional brick, wineglass or flutter of leaves, drift in sluggish response to a touch or a tilt of the screen, most of the pictures (even those that are full screen in size) have not been animated. There is no audio track, nor menu, nor bookmark feature nor, except for a link on each page to the beginning, quick way to navigate backward or forward.
Nothing short of massive redesign can give this any sort of appeal to would-be readers. (iPad storybook app. 8-11)
