And with a $329 price-point it's pretty easy to justify, especially if a $30 case can do a decent job at protecting it from drops. There's a ton of quality educational games on mobile platforms, my daughter loves playing stuff with the PBS Kids characters on her Fire HD but I get really tired dealing with all the arbitrary restrictions that get added by FreeTime (absolutely NO in-app purchases, even if an adult would authorize them - she has a few games with ads that I simply cannot remove because of this).
I've been wanting to get an iPad for her instead for a while, but if I'm spending more than the $140 it cost for the Fire I'd like to get a "full-sized" tablet anyway - so the new iPad hits a sweet spot for me personally.
Between Guided Access and Restrictions, I can hand an iPad to my two year old and not have to worry. Plus then throw on high quality children's apps (most of which are educational) and YouTube Kids, and you have a wonderful platform for children.
Parents could do much worse than to hand their kids an iPad. Certainly can be more engaging than throwing them in front of a TV for the same period (not that either TV or an iPad is a substitute for one on one play time, but sometimes adults need a break too).