Here's an excerpt from Chapter Two that struck a chord with me:

"Because words are essential in building the thought connections in the brain, the more language a child experiences – through books and through conversation with others, not passively from television – the more advantaged socially, educationally, and in every way that child will be for the rest of his or her life. Conversely, the fewer words a child experiences, learns and uses before school, the more stunted that child's brain will be."

She goes on to talk about television being a passive learning experience that has some value, but not the same as the back-and-forth interactivity that enforces a connection with language and ideas.

I agree completely. In both books and TV, the focus should be on getting a child to be an active participant in the story. 

Blue's Clues is the perfect example of the participatory kid's TV experience, a show I had the good fortune to be involved in. Every time we created a new episode, we had a blast thinking up visual gags and new character designs, but at the core of each of those early meetings was the understanding that our ultimate goal was to get the kids actively thinking and responding to what they saw on screen. It wasn't enough to simply entertain. Our job (not an easy one) was to get the viewers to want to help Steve and Joe so much that they just couldn't help shouting at the screen. It was better suited for developing problem-solving than vocabulary skills, but it was incredibly successful in getting kids' minds active.

Books should accomplish the same thing and even more so with vocabulary and language skills.

When I read to my 1-year old, he goes between listening quietly and jabbering and pointing. Personally, It's much more interesting for me to have him be active because we tend to read the same books over and over. After 1,000 reads of "All by Myself" by Mercer Mayer, I'm ready for some conversation from the little dude.

As an early reader, I enjoyed getting lost in books. It was a solo activity for the most part. However, what got me started and most involved was the teachers and librarians who read to the class, then asked us what we thought. It was a like a book club without the coffee and wi-fi hotspot.

Reading for entertainment is a luxury my older kids indulge in quite often. They don't really think about what it's doing for them from an educational standpoint. I would be worried if they did (I mean, they're kids for cryin' out loud). But my wife and I know what's happening. We wonder if they hadn't had that early interactive relationship with books from being read to, would they still be reading now just because they like it? Would their writing skills be as advanced?

Mem Fox's book really hit home when I think about creating illustration for children's books. More than just making pretty pictures, it's got to be about getting all those circuits firing in a kid's brain. A cute picture of a bunny is nice and fluffy and all, but to be successful in supporting a story visually, it's got to prompt a strong enough reaction to make a kid point and speak. It's got to "Change their lives forever."

That's quite a challenge. I better get back to it.

That was fun to write. Have I plugged into the fear accurately?

There's a resistance to digital media in children's education and I'm baffled by it. In conferences and blog comments in the children's publishing world, I've noticed an undercurrent of fear about digital art and books on computer. The idea being that somehow those things aren't "real," and we must protect the "tactile experience" of reading.

You know what? I love the weight of a good print book. I grew up on print books and turning pages is a nice feeling. I have a fun collection of first edition children's books and I enjoy picking them up and flipping through them now and then. I haunted the Carol Stream Public Library from 1976-1980. I'm one of those (whisper) "book hounds."

So I love print books, but here's the thing. Digital books will never completely replace them, but I welcome the new technology with open arms. It's possible that as a mostly digital artist I am slightly biased. I sit here in front of my ginormous LCD monitor and the art looks huge and pretty.

I'm sure I'll love the look and feel of it printed and bound on nice paper, too. I digress.

Here are some excerpts from a recent Los Angeles Time article, "Publishers of Children's Books See Bright Digital Future:"

There is some evidence that younger children learn less when they're reading books in electronic form. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University, studied parents who read digital books with their children and found that young children don't get meaning from what they're reading when they're playing with gadgets and distracted by all the bells and whistles of technology.

"We have to be careful that electronic media is not a substitute for hands-on," she said.

We have to be careful? This is the kind of language that irks me. No, we certainly do not have to be careful about reading and learning. It may be semantics, but being careful should be attributed to things like grease fires and driving in snow, not education.

We should be using whatever methods we can get our grubby hands on to teach kids. Kids today aren't distracted by the bells and whistles of technology, adults are. Have you ever seen a kid sigh, take the mouse from an adult and say, "I know how to find it, just let me do it." It's almost a cliche.

The meaning of what the child is reading doesn't automatically spill out of the computer any more than it spills out of a book. It's the educator who is responsible for clarifying meaning that's missed in the first read-through.

In short, it's not the fault of the medium, it's the facilitator. The content is the same.

The digital format adds something to tactile books, said Mary Ann Sabia, vice president and associate publisher of Charlesbridge Publishing Inc. It's more interactive and gives children different insights into the story and characters, she said. Charlesbridge now has digital books that sing rhymes to kids and books accompanied by digital learning games.

Still, she said, "We don't think that print books are going to disappear."

Thank you for being a voice of reason, Mary Ann Sabia.

The world is always changing and as educators we need to keep up.

Kids don't suffer anachronistic fools for long. Personally, I'd rather be in on the excitement now, leading the charge, than scratching my head later and wondering when everything suddenly got so complicated.

But please, please, I beg of you: do not use the word "careful" when you talk about reading or learning. That's a recipe for mediocrity if I ever heard it.