It is hard to get away from the digital publishing phenomenon. Every publisher is trying to get a handle on it and more particularly a slice of the revenue. Enhanced ebooks are a constant talking point. UK children’s publishing house Nosy Crow has invested heavily in their app development showcasing interactive stories based on well known tales. There are those that frown on the app and even the ebook for younger children, but there is no denying that children are drawn to the screen.
In a recent reading at a library I was surrounded by eight children as I read from a traditional book, one where you turn real paper pages. The children were polite and quiet as they sat and listened. Once we finished the story a couple of the children started talking about ebooks. I pulled out my iPad and began showing the children Nosy Crow’s Three Little Pigs app, they jostled to get close to me to touch and scroll the screen. Out of nowhere 30 more children appeared from around the library keen to be involved in this interactive storytelling.
There is no denying children want it, the difficulty lies in finding the balance between the paper product and the interactive product. It is likely to be a few years before we have solid research to indicate whether or not literacy levels are hampered by the interactive device, but so far the indication is that enhanced ebooks distract children from the story and stop them remembering narrative.
Despite the gloomy message behind the above research, publishers will continue to develop apps, games and enhanced ebooks based on the book product for as long as children are drawn to them. J.K. Rowling’s Books of Spellsaims to bring a magical book to life on the PlayStation 3. It seems that the stories that children are already familiar with are the ones that continue to gain a following in other enhanced formats.
Still in digital n
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By: Sophia Whitfield,
on 5/31/2012
Blog: Sophia Whitfield Children's Book Publisher (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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This week saw an empty school library featured on the front page of The Australian along with two big announcements in digital development by Allen and Unwin and Momentum, Pan Macmillan’s digital only imprint.
Allen and Unwin has launched a new digital program.
The House of Books aims to bring Australia's cultural and literary heritage to a broad audience by creating affordable print and eBook editions of the nation’s most significant and enduring writers and their work. The fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry of generations of Australian writers published before the advent of eBooks will now be available to new readers, alongside a selection of more recently published books that had fallen out of circulation.
Momentum announced it is to drop DRM on all titles to allow across the board accessibility.
US author Madeline Miller has won the prestigious Orange prize for her debut book, The Song of Achilles. Bookscan revealed it was clearly the bestselling book on the shortlist since the announcemen
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By: Sophia Whitfield,
on 7/13/2011
Blog: Sophia Whitfield Children's Book Publisher (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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0 Comments on This is outstanding:The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore as of 1/1/1990
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