Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Bookless Age

The Kindle Fire by Amazon.com, the online retailer, is one of the latest and most popular electronic readers of the season. For the uninitiated, ‘eReaders’ are portable electronic devices that allow you to store and read thousands of books all from the palm of your hand (along with other features, depending on which eReader you choose). As eReaders like Kindle begin to break into the mainstream, people are speculating that ‘books’ as we know them today may disappear in favor of electronic versions of the stories they contain –- forever changing our concepts of reading, literature, and publishing. Will eReaders be a fortunate thing or a bust in encouraging more children to read, and to read more?

A quick scan of available titles for download on Kindle reveals nearly 1,000 children’s books (although heavily slanted toward young adult stories). If any books survive an eReader revolution, my first instinct is that children’s books will. In terms of educational value, I see little difference between bound books and eBooks. After all, we’re reminded that traditional books have only been around for a tiny slice of human history, and they have been evolving. But more than any other genre, children’s books (and especially young children’s books) rely on engaging pictures and creative layout to successfully attract readers.


Current eReaders are limited in the images and formatting they can display, especially when compared with the masterpieces you can find on paper. Kindle enthusiasts rave about the visual output (and the technology is only going to improve), but will it ever compare in the eyes of our youngest – and harshest – book critics? Whether or not children prefer electronic books, will they be easier or more difficult for children to access?


Disclaimer: I do not own or use an electronic reading device, and my personal experience is limited to helping my 80 grandmother when she something ‘goes wrong’ with hers.


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