I remember very vividly some of my earliest extended reading experiences. One day I found a whole box of old Marvel comics that someone had lovingly collected

I remember very vividly some of my earliest extended reading experiences. One day I found a whole box of old Marvel comics that someone had lovingly collected since the 40s, including first issues of entire heroes and villains! I had no idea what treasure I had unearthed. All I knew is that to an 7 year old, the combination of illustrations (even in black and white) and frame-by-frame storytelling was an incredible revelation! I spent the entire summer going through the whole box and passed them around to my siblings who loved them almost as much as I. This was the birth of my fascination with sci-fi and later fantasy stories (there was a surprising amount of mythology in Marvel comics, especially the old comics). When I was a little older, around 9 or 10, my father bought me an entire set of thick encyclopedia books. Each one of the fifteen tomes was one inch thick or more. To a child, they initially looked intimidating as hell, though the color and texture of the covers as well as the detailed illustrations on perfectly smooth, polished paper was surprisingly attractive. At first, I would only use it to lookup something I did not know. But later, the interconnections and ease of reading was so great, that I ended up reading each book cover-to-cover! This is how I really discovered my appreciation of knowledge and how I gained strong confidence and desire in using and spending time in libraries for both work and pleasure. Somehow, I doubt the depth of these childhood (self-)discovery and learning experiences could be easily replicated with any e-books... This is even if there were not so many distractions in modern-day life such as mobiles and the Internet. Therefore, I am not surprised there is a move back to paper for parents. In particular, I believe simply the tactile nature of books at the very earliest ages (say 1-7) is important. Humans are physical beings and they relate and respond most strongly to physical objects, even if it is to later discard that physicality. This instinct should be developed as early as possible when the brain development is most primitive. In addition, a child gains the feeling of control, understands there's a difference between a thing and its representation in words and pictures directly, but that the representation itself is real and is a thing since you can hold and control it. This will then lead to a deeper understanding of the real revolution technologies provide later. Tip: it's not that you can use gestures on your iPad books! :)