Click Here To Purchase Tiptoe Through Tasmania: Around the World Adventures (Volume 1)

Author:  Janice Anderson

Publisher: Brainy Books, Inc.

ISBN13: 978-0-9832791-0-5

I found Tiptoe Through Tasmania by Janice Anderson to be a really interesting read. The book is directed at a middle school audience but I enjoyed it because it dealt with a subject I wasn’t familiar with, the plight of the Tasmanian devil.

Yes “Bugs Bunny” fans, the Tasmanian devil is a real animal, which is endangered due to an illness called the Tasmanian devil facial tumor disease. I was completely unfamiliar with this disease before reading Tiptoe Through Tasmania, but now that I have read it, I find myself wondering if a cure for this disease really exists or if Tasmanian devils in the wild are still dying of the highly contagious disease.

Tiptoe Through Tasmania is the story of fourteen-year-old Jaden and his younger brother Max. the pair are off to spend the summer with their uncle, Teto who is a scientist and a “wildlife warrior”. Their plans start off with a trip to Tasmania, an island off the coast of Australia, where the duo has to track and capture a Tasmanian devil. This is necessary so they can try out a treatment for Tasmanian devil facial tumor disease their uncle has, unfortunately their uncle isn’t able to join them on their excursion because he has a speaking engagement during the time the boys will be having their adventure.

It sounds like a lot of work for the boys to take on, but apparently they’ve been spending a lot of time with their uncle for as long as they can remember, helping him out and learning about wildlife. The two boys are nervous, but believe they are up to the task their uncle has asked of them. Land on Tasmania, find a Tasmanian devil, capture it, inject it with the treatment and monitor it for two hours to see if the treatment has worked. They have two days in which to get all the work done. Will they be successful?

I liked that Tiptoe Through Tasmania was a fast moving story with every detail contributing to the overall plot. It’s short, 114 pages and easy to read. It provides lots of interesting information about Tasmania and the Tasmanian devil and the layout is really good. The print is good sized and the spacing of the lines makes for easy reading. I think the layout would work well even with middle-school age readers with learning disabilities and the story is high interest and moves along at a good pace so it should keep readers in this age group engaged. It is a good adjunct to science studies about endangered animals as it teaches about the challenges facing one group of animals in a much more engaging way than the average textbook does.

My only complaint about the book has to do with a minor grammatical error that occurs repeatedly; There are several places where the name “Uncle Teto” is presented as uncle Teto when in fact the “u” in uncle should be capitalized. This was a minor distraction, but is something that I would discuss if I were an educator using the book, as I would want students to recognize when the word should be capitalized and when it shouldn’t be. Other than this I have no complaints with the books and found it to be entertaining and educational. I would definitely recommend it.


Click Here To Purchase Tiptoe Through Tasmania: Around the World Adventures (Volume 1)