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Comment by erez | Hacker News Reader

This is a yet another article reminiscing about "the old way" claiming "the new way" takes away something which was never there. There is nothing romantic about a book. There is nothing especially important to kids about print in contrast with a digital edition. It might not be a fair comparison taking a 600$, 10" monochrome ink-gray kindle reader and comparing it with a large, colourfully printed kids book, but assuming you have a device able to reproduce it, being sturdy enough to survive your average 2-years-old, what exactly is the advantage of a book? The idea that a tree died for it?

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It's not a matter of romantic notions.

E-books all look and feel the same, plus they lack texture, smell and make no sound when a page is turned. They're an abstraction of the reading experience.

Everything about handling a book stimulates the senses. Books have weight, texture, colors, smells, and they make noise when pages are turned. Because they vary so wildly in size, typography and paper composition, there's an enormous variety of sensations to be had.

E-readers are great and convenient for grown-ups, because all we want is the content, but young children are at a time of their lives when they need to physically experience the world around them. Physical books are better than e-readers on that count.

ebooks have texture, color, they can make sounds, you need to interact with them to move. What you think of are toys, not books.

See, everything is a toy to a six year old. Everything they see, hear or handle shapes their development in some way. Devices like smartphones and tablets have great unique uses, like people in other comments are saying, so I'm not suggesting you ban kids from using them or anything.

But I maintain books have far more physical qualities than any tablet or e-reader. Variety, for starters. Tabs and e-readers all come in some shade of black or gray, they all present a very similar glass texture to the touch, and they only have that new gadget smell for two days. On the other hand, very few books are the same. Moving from a magazine to a hardcover to a paperback may be all the same for you and me, but for a 6 year old is an extremely important feast of sensations that informs her developing mind about the myriad materials and textures and smells the world is made of.

Why rob a child of that variety?

When 'Everything is a toy', there is no real meaning whether it's an ebook, a book, a cutting board... The question is, whether a book allows for anything special, or is removing books 'robs a child of a variety'. I think not. We can't all have every stimulus available for our children. I never experienced snow until I was 30. Some kids never see an ocean. Some live in the city, some in a more rural environment. Some have pets, some don't. Future generations will not live with paper in their household. They will not be robbed of anything.

Keep in mind, this isn't saying ebook readers are suitable for everything. No ebook reader, at the moment, can match a huge, colourfully printed kids book, not to mention their fragility and price isn't suitable for kids. The same goes for feelies, pop-up books, cards with animals, or colours or other such educational toys, and so on. Take those out of the equation, and there are no advantages for print over digital. Actually, there is no advantages for print over anything if those are taken out, since a child will just refer to them as yet another toy.

  removing books 'robs a child of a variety'. I think not.

By definition, it does. The issue seems to be whether or not that variety matters. Trouble is, that leads to a discussion about parenting instead of tech :/

One of my toddler's favorite books includes items such as a the wool of a lamb and the texture of an elephant's ears. These are things an ebook cannot reproduce.

A similar argument can be made about original paintings, versus prints, versus (not really there yet, but can't be too far off) full-size, HD digital painting displays.

You have the information, and you have the physical object used to represent it. Of course you can take away the physical object and keep just the information. That doesn't mean there aren't those who enjoy the physical object for what it is.

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