Cruel to be Kindle
It's confession time - my name is Mrs F, and I'm a bookaholic.
*phew* Weight off my shoulders.
I was a fast-learner as a child, and my reading obsession started not long after birth with a heady mixture of bedtime fairy tales from my parents, and waterproof bath books teaching me the alphabet and a few basic words. Apple, Bee, Cup, Duck... you know, all the important ones!
By the age of 5, I was already in love with reading. Enid Blyton was my favourite at that time, and I would read the stories for hours and hours, again and again, soaking up every little detail - in fact I can still recount most of them today, and whenever I see a blackbird I am compelled to tell an amused Mr F the story of how the blackbirds got their gold beaks. (Not heard it? Well I'm not going to spoil it for you, read it yourselves!)
At the age of seven, I was assessed with a reading age of thirteen, a fact that made me very proud and from that point on I was never to be found without my nose buried in a brand new set of pages. My mum was a regular fitness class and gym-goer, so in the school holidays my sister and I would tag along to the leisure centre with her - which to my delight was right next door to the library. It was not an unusual thing at all for me to visit on a Monday morning, checkout my maximum allowance of ten books, and return on the Tuesday morning needing to return at least 5 or 6 of them. I read at the speed of light! Even on holidays in France as a teenager, the scenery would pass me by in a blur while I was riveted to the latest Point Horror book or - I admit - Sweet Valley High! I just couldn't get enough and if I ran out of books while still abroad, I would simply buy a French one with a French-English dictionary and sit there painstakingly translating it.
But the thing is, for me it wasn't just about the reading itself. It was the musty scent of the libraries tickling my nostrils, and the fun of walking on tiptoes along the aisles trying to find a little gem of a book that I hadn't yet read. Or even better, finding an unstamped one that nobody had read yet! It was the brightly coloured covers in shops that drew you in and made you want to start the first chapter there and then before you'd even paid for it (funny thing I've found about books - although the metaphor applies well to other areas of life, you actually can judge a book by its cover!). It was the feel of the new paper, the pristine corners, the unbent spines and still-lingering wafts of the printing inks that actually had the ability to set my senses alight. It was the collection of bookmarks, or falling asleep wit hyour finger marking the page, or even the fun of trying to remember the number of the page you were on. (Well I used to be able to do this. Now? Not so much.) It was the simple act of turning a physical page to read the next part of the story.
I must make it clear before I say my next piece that I am a huge lover of gadgets. Oh yes, I have iPods, iPhones, laptops, desktops, coffee machines, digital cameras (3!!), drawers full of USB sticks, memory cards, and cables that I'm pretty sure date back to my very first printer. But the one gadget I will never ever buy is a Kindle - or any other type of e-reader for that matter.
Ok, I 'get' them. I can see their advantages. But without a real book it just isn't a real reading experience! So they save room when travelling - well I don't have that problem, I pack the suitcases anyway so what's included is at my discretion. If my books won't go in, some of my husband's clothes go out. Simple as! So you can download books at your convenience at the touch of a button - great, just what I need, another excuse to not get off my backside! So you can create wishlists and have an easy record of which books you've read and which you haven't... hey I have one of those, it's called a bookcase! And I'm extremely fortunate that the wonderful Mr F also takes an interest in knowing what books are on said bookcase and in the nine and a half years that we've been together, has never once bought me a book I already had. Finally, don't even get me started on how much it would ruin my bath times. Granted my books are no longer of the waterproof variety, but at least a splash of water on a paperback will dry off... drop your Kindle in the bath and your entire bookcase is lying Titanic-like at the bottom of a scented bubbly ocean.
I'm not saying nobody should own a Kindle. The above list may be advantageous to some, and I'm pretty sure it's got to be a good thing saving paper. But to me, it makes the book soulless. The story becomes words on a screen. Your ability to read depends on whether or not you remebered to charge your book up. And what will it do presenting books to children in this manner? I'd like to believe that in this digitally-obsessed world it would encourage children to read who otherwise may not, but sadly I don't think this is the case. By putting books on screens, to a child they basically become a more 'boring' version of their beloved Nintendo DS; yet another gadget in their console-filled lives, but one they don't even want to use. If the results shown in this BBC News article are correct, less than 50% of children read a book outside of the classroom every month. EVERY MONTH! I do digress here - I'm certainly not pinning this statistic on the Kindle or any other e-reader - but what a sad fact that is. Let's start reminding children what books are all about, what vital learning tools they are - and how much fun they can be!
It is the saddest thing in the world that, as an adult with such tedious tasks as work, cooking, tidying and socialising (not the fun type, the necessary type), I no longer have the chance to read as much. But every birthday, Christmas or special occasion I still get such a tingle of excitement when I see a book-shaped object wrapped up in pretty paper. And every night without fail, I read before I go to sleep. It might take me a week to read a book these days, and now that I can no longer remember the page numbers (and can rarely find a bookmark) I'm pretty sure I often read half a book twice without realising, but I still love it just as much.
Thanks for reading - albeit on a screen...
Please do let me know your own thoughts, even if you disagree with me. I may be persuaded yet!
*phew* Weight off my shoulders.
I was a fast-learner as a child, and my reading obsession started not long after birth with a heady mixture of bedtime fairy tales from my parents, and waterproof bath books teaching me the alphabet and a few basic words. Apple, Bee, Cup, Duck... you know, all the important ones!
By the age of 5, I was already in love with reading. Enid Blyton was my favourite at that time, and I would read the stories for hours and hours, again and again, soaking up every little detail - in fact I can still recount most of them today, and whenever I see a blackbird I am compelled to tell an amused Mr F the story of how the blackbirds got their gold beaks. (Not heard it? Well I'm not going to spoil it for you, read it yourselves!)
At the age of seven, I was assessed with a reading age of thirteen, a fact that made me very proud and from that point on I was never to be found without my nose buried in a brand new set of pages. My mum was a regular fitness class and gym-goer, so in the school holidays my sister and I would tag along to the leisure centre with her - which to my delight was right next door to the library. It was not an unusual thing at all for me to visit on a Monday morning, checkout my maximum allowance of ten books, and return on the Tuesday morning needing to return at least 5 or 6 of them. I read at the speed of light! Even on holidays in France as a teenager, the scenery would pass me by in a blur while I was riveted to the latest Point Horror book or - I admit - Sweet Valley High! I just couldn't get enough and if I ran out of books while still abroad, I would simply buy a French one with a French-English dictionary and sit there painstakingly translating it.
But the thing is, for me it wasn't just about the reading itself. It was the musty scent of the libraries tickling my nostrils, and the fun of walking on tiptoes along the aisles trying to find a little gem of a book that I hadn't yet read. Or even better, finding an unstamped one that nobody had read yet! It was the brightly coloured covers in shops that drew you in and made you want to start the first chapter there and then before you'd even paid for it (funny thing I've found about books - although the metaphor applies well to other areas of life, you actually can judge a book by its cover!). It was the feel of the new paper, the pristine corners, the unbent spines and still-lingering wafts of the printing inks that actually had the ability to set my senses alight. It was the collection of bookmarks, or falling asleep wit hyour finger marking the page, or even the fun of trying to remember the number of the page you were on. (Well I used to be able to do this. Now? Not so much.) It was the simple act of turning a physical page to read the next part of the story.
I must make it clear before I say my next piece that I am a huge lover of gadgets. Oh yes, I have iPods, iPhones, laptops, desktops, coffee machines, digital cameras (3!!), drawers full of USB sticks, memory cards, and cables that I'm pretty sure date back to my very first printer. But the one gadget I will never ever buy is a Kindle - or any other type of e-reader for that matter.
Ok, I 'get' them. I can see their advantages. But without a real book it just isn't a real reading experience! So they save room when travelling - well I don't have that problem, I pack the suitcases anyway so what's included is at my discretion. If my books won't go in, some of my husband's clothes go out. Simple as! So you can download books at your convenience at the touch of a button - great, just what I need, another excuse to not get off my backside! So you can create wishlists and have an easy record of which books you've read and which you haven't... hey I have one of those, it's called a bookcase! And I'm extremely fortunate that the wonderful Mr F also takes an interest in knowing what books are on said bookcase and in the nine and a half years that we've been together, has never once bought me a book I already had. Finally, don't even get me started on how much it would ruin my bath times. Granted my books are no longer of the waterproof variety, but at least a splash of water on a paperback will dry off... drop your Kindle in the bath and your entire bookcase is lying Titanic-like at the bottom of a scented bubbly ocean.
I'm not saying nobody should own a Kindle. The above list may be advantageous to some, and I'm pretty sure it's got to be a good thing saving paper. But to me, it makes the book soulless. The story becomes words on a screen. Your ability to read depends on whether or not you remebered to charge your book up. And what will it do presenting books to children in this manner? I'd like to believe that in this digitally-obsessed world it would encourage children to read who otherwise may not, but sadly I don't think this is the case. By putting books on screens, to a child they basically become a more 'boring' version of their beloved Nintendo DS; yet another gadget in their console-filled lives, but one they don't even want to use. If the results shown in this BBC News article are correct, less than 50% of children read a book outside of the classroom every month. EVERY MONTH! I do digress here - I'm certainly not pinning this statistic on the Kindle or any other e-reader - but what a sad fact that is. Let's start reminding children what books are all about, what vital learning tools they are - and how much fun they can be!
It is the saddest thing in the world that, as an adult with such tedious tasks as work, cooking, tidying and socialising (not the fun type, the necessary type), I no longer have the chance to read as much. But every birthday, Christmas or special occasion I still get such a tingle of excitement when I see a book-shaped object wrapped up in pretty paper. And every night without fail, I read before I go to sleep. It might take me a week to read a book these days, and now that I can no longer remember the page numbers (and can rarely find a bookmark) I'm pretty sure I often read half a book twice without realising, but I still love it just as much.
Thanks for reading - albeit on a screen...
Please do let me know your own thoughts, even if you disagree with me. I may be persuaded yet!
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