But what I fear, as things go digital, is that a lot of the visceral love of reading will be lost. Not the romance of paper — although, there is that — but that physical connection one gets with books from an early age. That climbing into the book my daughter is doing, the way she can’t turn the page fast enough when she’s excited, the way she flips it aside when she’s done.
Of course, there will always be children’s board books. But the question is, as more and more parents spend more and more time with e-book readers and less with physical books, what kind of example does that serve? Don’t we spend enough time in front of screens as it is?
Print vs. eBooks isn’t a zero-sum game. There’s a place for both, and as Nawotka alludes to here, one of the rarely discussed advantages printed books have over eBooks is that they engage multiple senses. Something as simple as being able to physically turn a page helps develop fine motor skills and serves as an introduction to our left-to-right-dominant society; pressing the “next page” button isn’t an equivalent.
