Physical Books vs. Ebooks...a confession

So, there have been three books on my Goodreads Currently Reading shelf for quite a long time. It isn't that they aren't lovely books, actually when I'm reading them I'll devour large chunks at a time. The problem is *whispers* they aren't on my Nook. This means that these three books aren't easily accessible; I can't carry them all with me, in a cute little bundle of awesome, wherever I go. I can't look up words and concepts I don't know the second I don't know them. I mean surely I can't be the only one who starts reading a physical book, finds a word she doesn't know, touches it with her finger and suddenly...nothing happens. I've gotten used to the power of my finger and its ability to highlight. I've gotten used to never losing my place. I've gotten used to the WIFI. The most important point, however, is that these books don't light up which means I can't read them in the dark or in the car and if you knew how often I'm waiting in the car at night or how often I go to bed early just to read without interruption for the tiny tot, you'd understand how important it is that I be able to read under cover of darkness.

I've been noticing the change in my reading habits for awhile now...I just didn't realize how much.

I hope there's a 12-step program...er...maybe I should just come to terms with the fact that I adore my ereader and move on. What do you think?

N is for Nook

Nook as in Nook Tablet. Nook Tablet as in the most awesome invention ever...how did we entertain children before the advent of this device? Beats me!

Here's what we use it for:

Alphabet
ABC Owl: Preschool...goes through the whole alphabet, matching the letter to the objects, it has lots of sounds (repeats every letter and will say the name of any object) and I thought Lila would get bored, as it is the same every time, but she hasn't...yet


Fine Arts

Drawing Pad...she likes this app soooo much that she actually calls the Nook the Drawing Pad
Piano for Kids...like those little keyboards in the 80s, you can change it to animals, piano, guitar and each key is labeled (Do, Re, Mi and so on) and in the colors of the rainbow, it also plays background music
Sounds for Kids...in the beginning this was cool as it was instrument, zoo, wild and farm animal sounds, nature sounds and transportation sounds...then Lila learned them all, so...


Games
Bubble Birds...kind of hard for her to do, but she does like matching the birds and she likes the sounds
Music
Cupcake Yum...make cupcakes and decorate and eat them
Dress the Cat...there are several "Dress the..." games, but she chose this one. Dress the cat, choose a background, animate it, repeat until your mother takes the Nook away
Matching Zoo...matching with zoo animals, kind of hard for Lila at first, but she's getting better
Shape Builder...which is just about 50 interactive puzzles, there's a free version of this, but it's only about 7 puzzles

Numbers
Five Little Monkeys...singing (three different versions: country, rock, pop) and then interactive, you can make the monkeys reappear, open doors, windows, play with toys...and, you can make the monkeys 'go' and 'stop'

Reading...lots of reading...
The Animal ABCs...a book with letters and pictures to go with the letters, lots more fun now that she knows some of her letters and lots of the objects in the book...this book does not read to you
Biscuit...cute little story about a little dog that gets into puppy trouble
The Monster at the end of this Book...Grover actually reads this book, VERY AWESOME if you are like me and remember this book from wayyyyy back
Digger the Dinosaur...cute story about a little dinosaur
Cowboy Camp...adorable with fun pictures and I think Avery is an excellent name for a cowboy!
The Little Mermaid...um, it's Disney's The Little Mermaid...I love it!
Maggie and the Trouble Monkeys...not a story that reads to you, cute
The Smurfs...awesome just like the movie, GREAT narration!
The Island of Bum Bum Baloo...fun to read or listen to, who doesn't like alliteration
Tangled...sigh, we love this...it's just like the movie
Fun Facts About Pets...cool facts about all sorts of animals, that's how we learned all about bunny binkies, who knew?
The Elephant's Child: How the Elephant Got His Trunk...cute story by Rudyard Kipling, magical narration and we quote this book often, "And, the elephant did exactly that!"
Axel the Truck...great truck and engine sounds, nice message
Bible Stories...short, great for night reading, lovely pictures, all the major Bible stories
Greatest Fairy Tales of All Time...25 classic fairy tales, no pictures, but classic fairy tales don't need pictures, they need interaction and imagination

All of the apps were either free or $.99 to a $1.99 when I purchased them. The stories like The Smurfs, Monster, and Disney books, which were like $2.99-$4.99, but so worth it, they have background sounds from the movie or show, we read them a lot or she just sits and listens to them or talks along with them! The other books were free or $.99.

Booking Through Thursday (New or Used)

          I found a Thursday meme that just sounds delightfully fun and could not resist adding to my list of dailies (I will definitely be doing it often, mostly on Thursdays, but maybe even on Friday or Saturday). Anyway here's last weeks topic for Booking Through Thursday (now I need to go link this answer up and see what this weeks' topic is):

All other things being equal–do you prefer used books? Or new books? (The physical speciman, that is, not the title.) Does your preference differentiate between a standard kind of used book, and a pristine, leather-bound copy?

          I don't care what the book looks like, I care about the immediacy in which I need it. Frankly, when I lived near a used bookstore, I always preferred my books used. There's something mystical and delicious about chasing down a book that you want.

          However, just as with my Nook (more on Nook purchases at a post titled Nookie, Nook, Nook), I have basic guidelines I follow when purchasing a book:

1. I check the used bookstore first. There I usually buy at least 3 books, even if I can't find the one I'm looking for; happy times.
2. If I can't find it there and I really want it, I'm already in Springfield so I just go to Barnes and Noble and buy it, unless it's too old to still be on the shelves there.
3. If I actually want a hard copy then I order the book at my local bookstore or at Barnes and Noble.
4. If I don't want a hard copy to mark up then I check my Nook.

My favorite used bookstore in Springfield, Missouri.

Feel free to share your answers below, on the original post (above), on FB or on your own blog!

50 Books in a Year: Book #3 Alice I Have Been

          There is nothing better in the world, than nonchalantly browsing through a book store.

          My friends and I spent our first Friday back from break bumming around B&N--after a much needed pants excursion (I hate shopping), I needed something relaxing.

          We split up and roamed around, but all ended up converging at the 'new in paperback' section looking at and commenting on the covers--Lord knows a cover can make or break a book. All of us (husband and tiny tot included) stopped at the cover of the book Alice I Have Been.

           Now, you have to remember that, at the time, I was reading another book...but, I couldn't help that I wanted to start this book right away...it's got a recommendation from the lady author who won't stop writing her friggin' book series; it must be good. I mean look at the cover, you can tell it's going to be about the REAL Alice; Alice Liddell and her family, especially sister Lorina (Ina).
            I enjoy when authors take a fiction story and make it real or give it a twist like Wicked, and other books by Gregory Macguire, Beastly, and A Kiss in Time by Alex Finn, The Wide Sargasso Sea,  Beauty, Ella Enchanted, The Stinky Cheese Man, Pemberley and those silly monster books using Jane Austen novels (Pride and Prejuide and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters). And, I enjoy those stories that take something that's real and add, what some believe to be the truth, like Becoming Jane, From Hell, all those books by Phillipa Gregory, especially The Other Boleyn Girl, and The White Queen, Finding Neverland (The Man Who Was Peter Pan) and this book by Melanie Benjamin.

           My friend got the book for her Kindle several days ago and has been talking about it so much that finally we got it on the Nook. I've also recommended that my cousin and I start reading it together, I'm so glad she is (you know who you are!).

           What happens when Alice grows up? That's the question, right?

           So, far I have not been disappointed with how Benjamin is choosing to answer.

"I'm Ready for My Close-Up..."

          When I was a little kid I wanted to be an actress. By the time I was in high school, acting had taken a backseat to writing and writing had taken a backseat to teaching and teaching had morphed from teaching art to teaching English. Teaching English, by the way, encompasses loads of acting (ask me sometime about how I get students to read, at least some, of The Scarlet Letter, or about commanding an audience in meetings!), art (try fixing a bulletin board, mapping a scene or decorating a door) and writing (lesson plans, notes to parents/students/teachers/principals, worksheets, meeting notes, test et cetera).
           Several years ago I used both my acting, drawing and writing skills to create a creative writing class. That class was lovely, we wrote short stories and poems and, well, a former student now friend, could tell you more because she still remembers all we did and that was at least 10 years ago...pretty exciting class, with pretty willing, clever and eager students.
           One of the assignments was writing a scene from a screenplay. We used the best book Writing Screenplays That Sell (I no longer have this book because I lent it to someone, this was before I learned from Adler not to do that) to talk about types of screenplays, characters, settings and treatments. We watched The Karate Kid (the movie used in the book) and then we went about completing all the task necessary to write a screenplay (character development, setting map, etc.) and then, instead of writing a whole screenplay, we fleshed out one scene from our treatment.
            You see, I love screenplays. I prefer to read screenplays before watching movies, I prefer to imagine who I'd cast (and, the possibilities are endless) in certain roles, where I'd film the setting (like a Director of Photography) and then I watch to see the treatment. My favorite screenplays are those by Kevin Smith, and I enjoyed reading Good Will Hunting, Trainspotting and various television scripts (tiny screenplays), The Glades comes to mind, as you can download the pilot episode free on the Nook.
            Maybe I should have been a screenwriter, Lord knows there's not enough of those in the world, or a critic, again a profession that needs more people. *note dripping sarcasm* Hmmm...the more I think about it...I could have been a casting agent...they're like teachers, only really, really mean and without remorse.
            Sigh, maybe for my next career...



"It's the moment of truth..."



Twist Your Noodle...

"In our new knowledge economy, if you haven't learned how to learn, you'll have a hard time."
---Peter Drucker

         So far my kid loves to read...no seriously, she does. If there are toys on the floor and a pile of books, she picks the books. She'll grab one of the books and hand it to me, nodding her head, while quietly and passionately saying, "Yes, yes". We read to her at night and well, frankly anytime she wants. She loves books that have animals, and Seussian sentence structures and princesses...I can't wait until she starts reading the Serendipity books. We watch "Super Why" where you learn that if you have a problem you 'look in a book'. This genius cartoon teaches theme, rhyming patterns, spelling, phonetics and has caused my kidlet to sing, "ABCDEFG" over and over...I know she doesn't know that these are letters, but isn't it a start?
          I don't know how to keep this passion for books going, I don't remember not loving books, nor do I remember ever being told to read, so I don't know how to fan the flames. My mother read to us at night, something from the Bible and then something that we wanted like a chapter from the Laura books, "The Purple Pussycat" (Kim's favorite), "Popcorn" "Sheldon's Lunch" et cetera. On the rare occassion that I got in trouble and was told to go to my room, my mother would say, "No radio, and no reading". For as long as I can remember I have had a book in hand, in brain and/or in head. There was one night, just a couple of weeks ago, that the my whole tiny family was reading. Lila with her books on the floor, Chris with his Nook and me with my book. No television, just books and the occasional grunt of happiness...over books. We do this often.
            The men we have married are readers, sure it's non-fiction, sports books, man magazines or, in the case of my husband, "The Grumpus Under the Stairs"...a book he still wishes he had, by the way...a book that I can't find for sale under $100, but it's still reading. In our different ways, all three of us girls have become avid readers...sure Kim reads boring books like the manual to my car and Marissa reads scary books or VC Andrews, but we are ALL readers.
            Of course, my sisters and I had the same upbringing and, because we grew up in the world's smallest town, we had the same wonderful teachers, all of which did their very best to instill in us a love for reading. One teacher I remember especially, her name is Mrs. Coday, because she had a reading bathtub. It was one of those claw toed tubs that she painted some sort of obnoxious lime green and she had this tub sitting off to the side by the bookshelves. It wasn't attached to water or anything, there was no swimming involved, it was just an empty tub. But, during reading time (if you had been good) you and 2 or perhaps 3, I don't remember exactly, of your classmates got to sit in the tub and read. These times were the best times ever. In 5th grade, I got to be in the 8th grade-level reading class. Even then I understood that splitting kids up by their reading level and challenging them to read, at no matter what level, made them better readers. I understood this because my sister was in her grade-level class and she learned as much and had as much fun with reading as I did.
          We had Book-It goals (free pizza was way cool, Book-It was not tied to our passing our respective grade-level) and SSR, we did not have AR.
          In our own different ways, my sisters and I have figured out that reading is essential to life and understanding. We understand that the power to read and process information is stronger than monetary assets and we do not take this for granted.
          Being a high school teacher has also shown me the pitfalls of people who don't have a love for reading and I have also seen to what lengths students--smarts students--will go to NOT read (I can't even get all of my honors kids to read books in the summer--something I still assume every honors kid should just do by nature)...I do not want my kiddo to be one of these kids.
          How will I be able to make sure that my kiddo has teachers who instill in her a love of reading and how will I make sure that these teachers are more concerned with her learning than they are test scores and AR scores and MAP scores?
          How will I make sure that I teach my tiny person a love of reading without killing, in her, the joy of reading?



Happy Sparkly Halloween



Grandma (Nona) reading to Lila Jane



    

Nookie, Nook, Nook

          Over the summer my husband and I bought ourselves Nook eReaders from Barnes and Noble, we got the 3G WiFi version. Yes, we knew the NookColor would be out by Christmas, but we didn't want to wait and knew that we'd need a color eReader as much as we needed 'a new hole in the head' (thank-you very much grandpa for that little phrase).
          Um, to be quite honest, my husband uses his quite a bit...but, I rarely touch mine. You see the thing is I like books, I like the feel of the spine and cover, the weight of it as it sits in my lap...I like to turn the pages, but most importantly, I like to write in my book, the way that Mortimer Adler says, I like to own and possess my book, and you can't do that with an eReader!
          What I find I do like about my Nook is that books without spines and covers and actual pages are wayyyyyy cheaper than their archaic brethren, so my Nook holds all my b-list books. This list includes any book that I want to read, want to own, but don't want to pay $24.95 or $14.95 for, it includes books that I can't wait to own (sure, this sounds like the opposite of b-list, but it also means that I don't care enough about them to mark them up and I don't want to go to the bookstore to get them) like the latest in a series and it includes books that I already own, but can get free or cheap on the Nook. I have yet to finish a book on the Nook, as I only read them when I'm waiting for planes, in a hotel room and there's some down time or when I have nothing else to read.
          Now, I can tell you right now, my husband loves the Nook (he won't actually say that and when I talk to him about it he always gives some technical answer as to why he uses it, but I know it's sweet, sweet love). You see he takes that thing wherever he goes, he even took it to Las Vegas were he attended a friends wedding. He puts, on the Nook, books that he really, really wants. He has read all of Michael Lewis on the Nook, more financial books about, um, financial things...non-fiction type stuff. AAAAnd, he doesn't take notes, he doesn't understand why I feel the need to take notes, he doesn't understand why the little notes option with the Nook isn't enough for me...I show him examples of book markings...he still doesn't get it.
         So, our library (we share an account) in our his and her Nooks (his is the no nonsense, 'why waste money on a cover' subtle black cover and mine is the 'look at me, look at me, I've got a Nook inside', memorable lines from books adorable cover--he wouldn't let be get a Kate Spade), looks something like this (examples of the latest downloads): the complete Sherlock Holmes, The Big Short, all the Oz books, the latest Chelsie Handler, the latest Pat Conroy, the latest Bret Easton Ellis, more Michael Lewis, The Wall Street Journal, Eat, Pray, Love...you see I'm the downloading fool, he's the actual ereader.