Last night, as per usual, I sat down with my son to read him a story prior to bed time. I attempted to 'spice it up' by reading him a couple of children centric 'ibooks' that we had downloaded to our iPad. The format was a relatively new introduction to my 3 1/2 year old but I assumed that his interest with his parents 'phones' may translate to the reading world. The introduction was relatively short-lived. With an absolute look of disgust, he turned to me and said 'I want to read a book where I can turn the pages'. I wanted to point out to him that with a simple swipe of the finger that he could emulate the 'page flipping' action that he so desperately desired. But this was not a sale that I was going to make.
In his 3 1/2 years my son has been read countless print books ranging from the timeless 'Goodnight Moon' to the Dr. Suess classics. Our hope was that an introduction to books would lead to an interest in reading. We hoped that an interest in reading would spur his imagination and creativity and allow him to become a veritable sponge of knowledge. Time will tell if our hopes as parents will ring true but I think we can conclude convincingly that we have created a print consumer for life.