April Showers Us with Memories

by Marcy Collier

The beginning of spring always reminds me of spring cleaning. I am a pack rat. I come from a family of pack rats. My dad has started cleaning out his attic. It is raining and pouring – stuff! It's not unusual for me to come to work and find childhood toys scattered on the floor of my office or boxes left in my basement with all of my grade school papers. Does anyone else out there still have their 1970s Barbie corvette or camper, maybe your old Nancy Drew books? Maybe. Maybe not. But these items flood back childhood memories. Memories that I can use in future stories.

Recently, I was having a hard time writing a scene in my novel. I did everything from sketch the physical scene to write down sensory elements, but I couldn’t get it quite right. I paged through my old high school memory box and diary. I downloaded songs to my Ipod from when I was 17-years-old, the age of my character. I read through a top 100 list compiled at my summer job working at a water park. Then something clicked. I remembered the awkwardness of this age and reconstructed feelings from my character’s point of view, based on the memories and experiences of my 17-year-old self.

           

All writers love books. We like to touch the spine and hear the pages turn. With the demise of Borders and other small book stores in the Pittsburgh area like Joseph Beth Booksellers, local writers are worried. This has been a hot topic, especially on our blog. Will paper books disappear, replaced by only e-books? Will all the agents turn into publicists? I don’t know. But take a look at the transformation of music over the last 30 years. We listened to records, then cassette tapes, CDs, now downloads. In the 1980s people insisted kids would stop buying music and tape their favorite songs from the radio. The same happened in the 1990s with Napster and other music sharing sites. But people still buy music. The device has changed.

           

I envision future books to include integrated music, sound effects and maybe even sensory overloads, like those old scratch-n-sniff stickers, only more intense. Wouldn’t it be cool to hear the storm, smell the rain and feel the hair on the back of your neck stand on end as the villain corners your character into an old, rickety shed? Or, you could mute the sensors and sounds and simply imagine those details.

But as Carol pointed out in her post on Monday, April 11, 2011, the picture book experience is different. I have young children. I don't read to them from my Nook. I like to snuggle up in our comfy chair and read from a book. Studies have shown, reading to children from a digital device can interfere with their ability to focus on the text and process the information. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081219073049.htm
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2010/07/16/2003478034

           

But as writers, should we embrace the future of electronic books even if we disagree? J.K. Rowling hasn't. At least not yet. The Harry Potter series is not currently available in electronic format, but rumors are she is reconsidering. http://www.tweentribune.com/content/harry-potter-your-ipad

Writers will still be in demand even if the device has changed. No one knows if books in paperback will disappear in 10 years. They certainly won’t in my house. Remember, I’m a pack rat. Books will be displayed on bookshelves and packed in boxes in my attic. I want to be able to sit my future grandchildren on my lap and read hard-covered picture books to them. But the newest reading device will also rest on my nightstand full of electronic literature. How do you see the book industry in 10 years, and will you embrace the change or fight it?      

In the Forecast: A Deluge of e-Picture Books?

Posted by Carol Baicker-McKee



Comparison of book version and ipad version of spreads from The Three Little Pigs illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke

Like Kitty in this post, I've been thinking about the flood of technology changes for readers. In particular, I've been amazed at the shift to ebooks: by the middle of 2010, Amazon reported that e-book sales for its Kindle device had surpassed those of hardcovers, and by early 2011, they had surpassed sales of paperbacks. That's a phenomenal shift in the way many people read books.

But like many other children's book people, I've been assuming that picture books are different, that they will persist almost exclusively as physical objects rather than evolve into electronic files to be consumed on a reader. (See, for example, this post by the fabulous author Eric Kimmel.)

For one thing, who wants to hand a young child an expensive electronic device to get dropped, banged, smudged with sticky fingers, and perhaps even drooled and chewed on? For another, reading with a young child is a cozy, physical experience - curling up with a screen just doesn't seem the same from an emotional viewpoint. Finally, there are all the difficulties of picture books that most e-readers aren't well designed to handle, beginning with color, and continuing through full spread illustrations, and the wide variety of sizes and shapes of books that don't translate precisely to the fixed screens of devices.

But I'm starting to realize I was wrong. Picture books are going "e" and I wonder how profound and rapid the shift will be.



Image on Color Nook from Go Dog, Go by P.D. Eastman

 One reason is the introduction of more e-readers that can handle color. The recent debut of the color Nook (the Barnes and Noble reader) and the growing popularity of tablets like the ipad means that more e-readers can provide a visually pleasing reading experience.

Screen shot of the cover of Green Eggs and Ham ipad app

Another is that the proliferation of ipads and other tablets is leading to the development of more and more picture book apps - a medium that's part book, part game, part animation. (See for example this recent NPR article on children's book apps for the ipad.) More "shiny" choices for kids = more people buying this format rather than traditional books.

I think too that I underestimated the comfort of young parents with sharing their electronics with their kids. In the grocery story now, I nearly always see a mom distracting a fussy toddler not with a cookie but with a game or book app on her expensive smart phone. (I'll also wager that there are teams of engineers right now developing readers aimed at hard-using tots.) And as this other NPR article reflects, today's parents don't feel as awkward as I do about snuggling at bedtime with a device and an interactive app that does all the work rather than a paper and board book that I have to read out loud myself.

So what do you think? Are ebooks going to replace traditional picture books? Do you use them? Love them or hate them?

Valentine in the Era of E-Books

by Susan Chapek

With apologies to Fred Rogers

It's words I love.

It's not the book I read,

It's not the electronic feed,

But it's words I love.

It's words all by themselves,

The magic there inside them—

Not the things that hide them,

Not the books—

Books are just outside them.

But it's words I love—

Their shape and sound and rhythm,

The stories they bring with them

Whether old or new.

On Kindle or on Nook,

On a compact disc or in a book—

It's words I love,

The words themselves,

It's words, it's words I love.