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I have always been what is termed ‘an early adopter’ and I distinctly remember unwrapping my object of desire which was an early 40g i-pod. What a delicious piece of design it was and the box itself was a triumph. I embraced the idea of the MP3 and had absolutely no problem dispensing with CDS and beginning my love affair with music on the move.

So explain to me if you can, why I have not been able to bring myself to buy a Kindle? No matter how many times I have perused them, checked out all the details there’s a part of me that is not convinced. I think it’s because I am waiting for something better, don’t ask me what, but something.

Therefore I was interested to read in a Sunday newspaper that conventional books are actually bouncing back. I thought this was fascinating and read on. After all it was only a couple of years ago that the digital writing was on the screen (yes, a clumsy update of wall, I know!) Publishers were gearing themselves up to say goodbye and in fact everywhere you went, everyone was clutching an e-reader (except me of course).

So, surprise, surprise, both in the UK and the US sales of e-books are levelling off and even those who possess an e-readers, still read print. In fact Nook, the e-reader developed by Barnes and Noble which attracted investment from Microsoft, no less, found that its Christmas sales were down just over 12%; oh dear.

What is going on you may ask? I think users are beginning to see the flaw of reading the old ‘scroll’ method which we abandoned just a few years back! The problem is although you can bookmark, you can’t flick back a couple of pages. Call me prejudiced but I just don’t want to read on screen; I do it all day, every day and just don’t fancy it for pleasure.

According to research carried out by Leicester University, we also absorb more when reading in print than on screen. Ha! I knew it! I have to confess right now that I skim read all the time on screen. Hey, as a guest blogger we have all developed techniques to accommodate this like using bullet points, headers and short paragraphs as if we have all lost the power to concentrate.

So does that mean, grownups read print? I am joking, but what I mean is, that if you want a full reading experience choose print. After all, where is the space for typography? e-books just aren’t sexy enough (not talking 50 Shades of Grey here) you know what I mean. Call me old fashioned but I love holding a brand new book in my hand. I love to see its dimensions, the cover, the font, its whole design and smell. I once went to an exhibition of bespoke editions of Booker Prize shortlists where these utterly beautiful books were, well excuse me, orgasmic and I had to be lead away! Yes, yes, perhaps I should ‘see’ someone!

Where's Spot?

Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill

Which brings me to my point; sorry it has taken almost 500 words. Are children missing anything from the reading experience by reading digitally? How would Where’s Spot by Eric Hill, Jan Pienkowski’s Haunted House, The Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle and other pop up books work on screen? Well they don’t. I think of the games of hide and seek that went on when I read board books with my son, the joy of unfolding the letters in The Jolly Postman and the pack of cards which magically flew up at the end of our edition of Alice in Wonderland are just two of the books we loved.

Haunted House
The Jolly Postman

Of course there is a place for an e-reader but illustrators old and young will not be confined to this medium and I am so glad. As Stephen Page of Faber and Faber said, it’s all about upping the product away from the mass market, cheap as chips formula. There has been an emergence of coloured end papers and more hard backs for sale and who knows even the return of illustrations in adult books?

I’m saying nothing…….

Vivienne Neale is a children’s writer.
Her novel The Cashpoint Kid will be published shortly, with a real cover, designed by Josef Hill and everything!