Continuing our conversation on e-readers, here's some news from Barnes & Noble. According to the Wall Street Journal, the retailer will be launching 12,000 e-books geared toward children ages 3 to 8. There will be thousands of chapter books available and by November there should be 100 picture books. Apparently, B&N also has deals with more than 15 children's book publishers to develop enhanced e-books that will include features like "a page with a sky full of falling blueberries, which kids can pop with their fingers." They're also thought to be planning the launch of a color Nook with touch-screen features.
Check out nookkids.com to see some of the book titles and get a sneak peak. As it says on the website, "Storytime comes to life with enhanced NOOKbooks that invite kids to interact with the text and pictures on the page — allowing them to follow along as their adventures are read aloud to them. With NOOK kids children have a whole new way to immerse themselves in their favorite stories and bond with their beloved characters through the largest selection of eBooks available."
So, here's the question...With all the interaction and the option to have the story read aloud, are these books or video games? When kids sit down with their "enhanced" Nooks, should it count as reading time? Will these tools help our kids learn to love reading or even to learn to read?
As a mom and grandmother, I have reservations about all of these electronic devices which tend to isolate us even more than we are now. In my day, it was the advent of air conditioning that isolated us from our neighbors. Will these devices that are being developed isolate our children from adults? In today's society, with parents more and more involved in their work worlds and children more and more involved with surrogate care, will this be the ultimate answer to their busy schedules? I wonder if we aren't going to be raising little robots in the future.
Will children and adults interact only with machines as society moves forward? Will socialization suffer? If the machine does it all for you, do you need human contact? Will we become less compassionate as we identify more with unemotional electronic devices rather than humans, i.e, the machine can read aloud, the machine can answer questions, the machine can give advice, the machine can babysit, entertain, interact with touch screens, etc. Will there be a need for a teacher or a librarian or a parent with whom to interact?
Posted by: Reading Grandma | 10/26/2010 at 09:34 AM