The Tale of The Stinky Brother’s Blueberry Pie

The other day I was telling a friend of my mother’s about my new iBook for the iPad. A dark, dark look rolled up on her face. The head began to slowly shake. The corners of her mouth drooped; she was going to give me the ‘death of the book’ talk.

It’s not like I had just said, “Have you heard? Storytelling is dead. Yep, that’s right…there are no more stories being told. We don’t need them anymore. We don’t want to hear any and we don’t want to tell any.”

The Story is alive and well. If anything, there are more stories being told now than ever before. But there is much talk and fear traveling around that if our children do not look at books made out of paper, they shall be losing precious lessons, precious sensations, emotions, tactile experiences, good old fashioned meaningful fun. Do people really think that to get the most from a story it needs to be on bound sheets of tree pulp?

As a mother, I’m a strong believer that fear is more detrimental than just about anything. If you are afraid of what the shift away from stories on paper to new mediums will do to your children, take a deep breath and just sit down and do some lego with them, or play tea party. Or, tell them a story about when you were little. Or ask them to make up a story about three socks who set out to learn how to make blueberry pie. Then, when you are refreshed, remind yourself that some paper books are awful, some apps are awful and some ebooks are awful. But you can choose what you like from so much fantastic stuff out there and if you share it with your children with love and excitement, everything will be just fine.

Things are changing and it’s ok. We still yearn to connect, to hear from our elders, to make people laugh, to give and receive advice. There’s no need to panic. Plus, panicing makes kids kind of edgy.