Despite the fact that The Country School has made a significant investment to have in place for our students the most up to date and best technology available, we still very much believe in a technology that predates iPads by many centuries: the book. Mrs. Orban’s piece last week about how, in our library, we balance materials and approaches but still emphasize books over technology resonated beautifully with a book I recently received as a gift.
It’s A Book, by children’s book author and illustrator Lane Smith, is a delightful volume that humorously reminds us of how compelling books continue to be, even in this digital age. The main characters are a book-loving monkey and a laptop cradling donkey. The donkey doesn’t quite get what a book is. He wonders how it works; whether it can text, Tweet, or receive Wi-Fi; and how the user can make the characters fight. When the monkey shows him a sample, he reduces a passage in Treasure Island from:
“‘Arrgh,’ nodded Long John Silver, ‘we’re in agreement then?’ He unsheathed his broad cutlass laughing a maniacal laugh, ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ Jim was petrified. The end was upon him. Then in the distance, a ship! A wide smile played across the lad’s face.”
to:
“LJS: rrr! K? lol! Jim: : ( ! : )”
Finally, though, the donkey gives the book a try and becomes entranced. He won’t give it back. He tells the monkey he’ll “charge it up” when he’s done, and the monkey goes off to the library for more.
While we want our children to know how to put the most useful tools of our age to use, that includes books. We never want them to lose the capacity to lose themselves in a book or to delight in the magic that books create. We always want them to be stretching their minds and to be like the monkey and go back to the bookshelf for more.