Will E-Books Replace Baby Board Books?

I am taking my twin 4 year old grand daughters to a teddy bear tea.One twinis planning to wear her purple tutu with her matching sparkly purple shoes;theother twin wants to wear green leggingss with a sparkly mickey t-shirt.One is bringing "baby" and the other one is bringing her two Meows. Both are excited about eating the yummy cookies and listening to a story book read to them, their dolls and stuffed animals.

They love holding books, looking at the pictures and asking questions. Children's board books have colored pictures, big words that can help a child learn to read. Sometimes, the pages are laminated to withstand sticky fingers and sippy cup spills. What would

they do if the reader was using an e -book?

Olivia is a favorite book for toddlers

Could they see the pictures? Would they be able to stop on a favorite page and repeat a favorite line?

An article in the Wall Street Journal Nov.19th by Michael Hsu answered some of these questions.

"This week Amazon released hundreds of children's titles designed for its new tablet, the Kindle Fire......And Barnes Nobles currently carries more thn 300 children's e-books... so I decided to give these e-books a try."

He noticed that that illustrated e-books vary depending upon where you buy them. Sometimes, the drawings barely fill the screen..His best experiene with children's e-books was Barnes & Nobles which offers a dedicated Nook Ipad ap for kids so you can keep your own books separate." And the Ipad can play all of the Nook's enhanced titles -which include narration and in some cases, sound effcts, subtle animaton and games."

After a lot of experimenting, he concluded;" As far as the storytelling experience goes, e-books fall short in one area; the page turn- which is crucial to the pacing of a children's story...you can't slow it down."

The biggest plus is for the travelling parent or out of state grandparent who wants to keep copiedof children's ebooks on their iPad for out of town reading dates. With the marvels of modern day skype , you can read a bed time story from anywhere.

But for me I will stick with the hard copies.Nothing replaces taking kids to the library or bookstore where they can hold a book,look at the pictures and pick out favorites.

When a new baby is born ; a book is a favorite inexpensive gift to add to the gift package.

Nothing is a better gift for the older siblingthan a book . Curious George with his many adventures and the Llama, Llama series are always well received.

Mygrand kids still like to feel and touch a book. Ihave had too many wonderful sleepovers with my grandchildren, where we have read a favorite story and then they have asked totake the book to bed so they could stay up an extra few minutes. They think they have outsmartedme into extending bedtime, not knowing that I am thrilled that they are enjoying a book.. Those images of their little fingers holding their books while they are fast asleep will stay with me forever.