Great Article: Why don't we do it like the U.K. does it?

Hardbacks vs. Paperbacks, etc... And elsewhere, in the NYT, an article about e-books. With the interesting little tidbit that at least one of the publishers is sending out reps with these, and not the real-live books, because real-live books are too heavy.

Books will always exist, but isn't it clear--when the reps are carrying e-books--that there are big changes afoot, ones we must not ignore, ones that could bring many more books to children? We just have to mix it up a bit, and hope that the kiddies also get the real-live books to keep, lovingly, in their bedrooms.

Look, when you are on a four hour car trip six years from now with a three year old in the backseat, I want to know: will you have stacks of real-live books skittering all over the floor of the van, or will your ruddy-cheeked darling be reading a play-doh-colored, indestructably-lego-like e-book of her own? The giant bag of books is not going to win, do you think? Even the reps don't want it.

My older kids, now in college, used to have gray gameboys that felt like small bricks (old school gameboys, yes). How I would have loved those gameboys to be be e-books: portable, worthy of attention, and loaded with information. We had books in the car, too. But most of them didn't fit in my purse, and those clunky old-school gameboys did. Guess what came along with us when we got to our destination?

Bring on the play-doh-lego-style e-book.