Home library of the modern child

Books played a huge role in my childhood. My parents (then still young engineers) had a lot of books - adventure novels, detective stories, science fiction, technical and scientific literature. My father had been filing the magazines "Young Technician" and "Inventor and Innovator" for a decade and a half. A book or magazine in our house has always been something very important. It was not even so much the fact that in the 80-90s it was not so easy to get them as in the attention with which my parents read them, discussed them, told me something. And the child, in any case, inherits the behavior of parents and their interests. And I read technical magazines to the holes, easily “swallowed” the children's fiction of Bulychev and Harrison, a little straining - and more serious Bradbury and Sheckley. The city library, frankly despised by the majority of my peers, saw me 2-3 times a week for almost a decade. In many ways, my life path, an interest in science and technology, was already defined then. I think, if in my bookcase 20 years ago there were no Aelita Tolstoy, Wells Time Machine and I, Robot Azimov, I would not write this article (and hundreds of previous ones) now on Habré, but I would wipe my pants somewhere in the position of “middle manager for shifting from empty to empty”.

Today is 2014, and now my child is learning to read by syllables. Tomorrow he will reach out to the bookcase. What does he take - a paper book or an e-book? What is this book?

Let's look at the facts:

• My home library consists of only a couple hundred books. At the same time, “a couple hundred” is, by modern standards, considered even a lot. Few of my friends have even so much. It is believed that buying a paper book is long, expensive, harmful to the environment, inconvenient. “You can just read on the Internet!” - this is the modern worldview.
• Yes, read on the Internet - you can. The Internet, giving us the opportunity to get any information in 2 clicks, thereby doing us a disservice - equated all the information with each other. Before the works of Greek philosophers, Darwin’s theory of evolution and Einstein’s formulas are the same 2 clicks as before the video with funny kittens, the site with anecdotes and pop stars in social networks. The Internet is a landfill, with very few mind islands. They can be found if you know what to look for, but after swimming across the sea blindly, there are no chances.
• Suppose you can sit down and buy once \ download good, important and necessary books. But what to do next with the download? Put on the hard disk in the library folder? This is the one next to the folder "Disassemble someday"? Yeah of course. The file on the disk is not of the same importance as a paper book. He is today, tomorrow - no. It is no different from the thousands of files around, it is not more important than not yet downloaded or already deleted files. Just bytes. There is no “warm lampovosti” book. Write to external media? Thank you, I have already thrown away my floppy disk collection first, then the CD collection, then the DVD collection. It is meaningless, progress is too fast.

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It turns out that paper books are gone, but in their place ... nothing came. What to do? I thought for a long time how to organize the home library so that it was convenient, simple and accessible to the child. I will not say that I have invented something very clever, but I have gathered some thoughts together - perhaps it will be useful to someone, and maybe in the comments under the article we will come up with something good together.

Books for the youngest children (0-3 years old) should be paper
No matter how long / stupid / not environmentally friendly it is to buy paper books - the little ones need them. At this age, the content is not so important - children observe shapes, colors, recognize and memorize objects in the pictures. The book is not read yet - they are watching it, feeling it, turning it. Even such experiments as “biting a book” and “breaking a book” must be made, information is also drawn from them. This can be done only with the paper version.

In advance, I would like to answer those geeks who now will start shouting to me, “Yes, there are thousands of programs for the youngest children in the markets, just put and give the child a tablet.” I answer. There is nothing in those markets. I put about fifty programs that position themselves as educational books for children up to 3 years old - paid and free, under Android and iOS. There is no one good. None. Programs are trying to take animation, wave sounds, bright colors - but it's not that. The traditions of children's book printing are not one hundred years old. Fashion on tablet toys came just a couple of years ago. It is simply incorrect to compare a riveted couple of freelancers for a can of canned meat “the best book of fairy tales for the little ones” with a true work of book art, such as, for example, books by Olivia Brooks , where every square centimeter of each page is filled with characters, objects, movement, emotions, where every lamppost breathes the atmosphere, and according to the poses of any two or three people, the stories of their life begin to fall from the tongue, whole worlds “on the tip of the pen” appear.

The software industry to such a talent, flight of fantasy and love for their work still jump and jump. Therefore, for the youngest children - paper books.

As soon as the child read his first word - he should be given a reader
Not a tablet. Not a telephone. Reader. Well, a tablet with a phone, of course, a child may also have, but their presence is in no way connected with the goal of giving the child the opportunity to read comfortably. A tablet with a phone is for another. The reader is quite inexpensive, does not distract from reading all sorts of messengers \ mail \ social networks \ toys, it is comfortable for the eyes, spacious, keeps the battery charge for a long time. Exactly what you need for thoughtful reading. It is also very important that the child’s reader was personal, only him, because the tablet can be one per family, the tablet can be taken away as a punishment, and as a reward you can buy it better. The reader can not pick up, and better buy does not make much sense. In general, as our parents used to buy drawing books and notebooks, so today's child needs to buy a reading room.

The house should have several large illustrated paper encyclopedias on various topics.
You do not know who your child will grow up. You do not even know what will interest him tomorrow, what question he will put to himself and where he will look for an answer. Therefore, you must immediately be fully armed. The house should have big beautiful books about space, nature, biology, geography, technology, history. Yes, they cost money. But this is good - if you give 100-150 dollars for a really good book, you will be sure that some nonsense is definitely not written in it, that the quality of this book is decent, you don’t be too lazy to read it, you will appreciate it - and it will be passed on to kid.

Paper encyclopedias should be harmoniously complemented by electronic materials.
Whatever you may say - the golden age of television gave us some fruit. Today you can find really high-quality materials that you want to watch and revise. I'm talking about cycles like BBC - Planet Earth or Cosmos: Space and Time .



If you have not watched the first or second - well, allocate an hour for the first series and you can not deny yourself the pleasure to watch until the end. You can pick up similar materials on various topics. In the most beautiful paper encyclopedias on the last page, you can paste a "cheat sheet" on additional materials on the topic. Needless to say, not “somewhere on the Internet,” but to a locally available copy. Internet links are dying very quickly.

Books need to buy, not steal from torrents
Do not think that I am a fan of copyright laws and in general all such a correct moralist. No, it's different. Going to a root tracker in search of, for example, fiction, you most likely download something like “1000 best books - an anthology of world fiction” or “All books of the author X - 138 pieces”. Download, it will lie down in the Downloads folder (yeah, another folder next to “Disassemble Someday”) and will be removed when you next clean the screw. At the same time, buying an electronic version of the book, you still think: "And what should I buy?". You read reviews, ask for advice, choose the format you want. There is no 100% guarantee that you will buy a worthwhile book, but there are high chances that you will not buy too much, you will realize that you are buying. The purchased book will not be lost in the Downloads folder, it will fall into the tablet or reader and will be read. Selected and purchased in a single copy - is appreciated. Got free in huge quantities - no.

The first book is on the shelf, the rest are in the reading room.
I still remember how I once took from the shelf the first volume of Sherlock Holmes's twelve-volume works by Conan Doyle. It was a black book, medium size, hardcover with the Roman numeral I. It has been 20 years since then, and the feeling of this book is still in memory - I can remember its weight, paper type, font. After this book, there were 11 more who swallowed my summer vacation (which I don’t regret at all). Suppose I had a computer at that time and would have the same texts in electronic form on it. Would I start reading them? Would you continue? Would I remember the e-book as I remember the paper one? I do not know, not sure. I have a lot of similar memories about specific books.

It seems to me that one book of significant authors (and even better, separate cycles) should stand on the shelf. After reading the first book of the series in paper form, you can already understand whether you like the style or not, if so, you can already read the rest in electronic form.

The correct system of distribution and synchronization of books
Neither you nor the child should have any stupid problems with the spirit of “a screw was covered - the books were gone”, “I started reading on the tablet - he sat down, I can not continue to read”, “I am going to the subway, I’m only on the phone, and the books are at home on the computer. " Books should be stored in a safe place, in the cloud, with locally available copies. The task of transferring books to any device in the house should not take more than 2-3 clicks. Personally, my library is stored in Dropbox, Caliber is used for its maintenance, which can send books to the Kindle via Wi-Fi with one click, and on iOS and Android devices, of course, there are Dropbox clients and reading programs. So, the discharge of the battery or even the physical destruction of any of my devices will in no way prevent me from continuing to read the started book.

Going to the bookstore with your child is very important
And not from the age of 12, but from the age when the child learned to walk. Sly sellers put on the lower shelves of bright children's books that the child lacks, and the adult after that can no longer refuse to buy him. But it is fine. It is better to let the child have enough books in the bookstore from the bookshelves than in other stores - Chinese toys or fast food. Especially since from the N-th time a seized book can already be discussed with him, advise another, suggest something and send. For a child of middle and older age, it would be good to allocate a separate budget for books - many stores (both paper books and electronic ones) have gift certificates, they can be given to a child for various holidays as an additional gift.

It is your responsibility to get a list of recommended literature from the teacher for the next year and upload them to the reading room.
Let's remember our school years - each time before the holidays we were given a list of what we need to read next year and 8 out of 10 students ignored this list. During the school year, someone read the anthology, someone the first 20 pages of each book, someone listened to retellings of classmates, and someone wrote something like "Marivanna, I did not have a book and that's why ..." . Responsible reading is an important thing, it is difficult to read something that does not exist. The probability that the book, to which 1 click will be read, is higher than in the case when there is no book at all.

Personal example
With this I started the article, and this will finish. Just having books, their quality, ease of reading, cataloging and searching is not enough. A book standing on the shelf is not enough, a file on the e-reader is not enough. The book should be in the hands of parents familiar friend, and not a rare guest. Books in the house should be read, discussed, handed over to the child from hand to hand - then they will have weight and significance.