Will Our Children’s Children Read Paper and Ink Books

Yesterday, as I was eating lunch in our local shopping area, I saw another bookstore had gone out of business. That was the third bookstore to disappear. They’d had a book sale for a month and they still managed to fill a small truck with boxes of books.

It makes me sad to first see independent book stores go out of business and then smaller chains go out of business.  Last time we visited one of the larger chains of book stores even my daughter commented on how many trinkets were on sale and how the books are being pushed further and further back into the store.

Is this the beginning of the end for paper and ink books?  Will our children’s children never know what it’s like to turn a page or smell the fresh ink from a newly bought book?  How will eReaders and eBooks change the way our children learn to read?  eBooks like the Dr Seuss collection we mentioned on his birthday allow kids to have books read to them, to point on words to have that word read out aloud and they have more interactive illustrations.  Are these new applications taking away the simple pleasures of just reading a book?