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Why Beatrix Potter Would Love a Digital Reader

Posted by timothy on from the bunny-centerfold dept.

destinyland writes "In 1906, children's book author Beatrix Potter tried creating her own new, non-book format for delivering her famous fairy tales. 'Intended for babies and tots, the story was originally published on a strip of paper that was folded into a wallet, closed with a flap, and tied with a ribbon.' This article includes a link to actual images from one of Potter's strange wallet-sized stories — 'The Story of A Fierce, Bad Rabbit' — plus an image showing you exactly what Beatrix Potter thought 'a fierce, bad rabbit' would look like!"

10 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    err okay. Who cares?

    1. Re:huh? by Okonomiyaki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nobody. But if anyone did, they'd immediately find the premise of the article ridiculous. Good luck teaching a baby to use a Kindle. Also, I doubt babies would be interested in monochrome rabbits.

      I used to have an ereader, not a kindle but similar, and I liked it a lot until it broke. But I really don't see why anyone would choose a kindle or similar device over an iPad. Am I missing something?

    2. Re:huh? by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's even more amusing if you know why she wanted the weird format in the first place: it was so the "book" could be printed in fewer runs through the press, so she could have color on more pages, and still be affordable.

      So yea, she'd have hated the Kindle. I personally hate the Kindle because it's a single function device, and because the ebook format is still so overpriced.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  2. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Shouldn't this be in idle?

  3. What? by BonquiquiShiquavius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the link between publishing a book in a pamphlet style and a love for digital readers?

    1. Re:What? by JeffSh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What he said, tenuous link at best. slow news day, stupid conclusions, etc etc.

    2. Re:What? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. It appears that Ms. Potter wanted a different experience for the readers, one that included a very tactile experience. That's the exact opposite of a digital reader.

    3. Re:What? by jd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Beatrix Potter was clearly interested in the telling of stories and was including the medium as part of the story, not something independent and transposable. As best as I can tell, it relates to eBooks only in that Beatrix would have used eBooks for stories that called specifically for an eBook format. In other words, she would neither be afraid of the format NOR use it merely because it existed. If it would be important, it would be used. If it wouldn't be important, it wouldn't be used. Since I cannot see any way in which it could be important to any of her work, I can't see any circumstance in which she would prefer it.

      (Considering the medium to be intrinsic is very alien to much of modern thinking, which portrays the medium as merely the mechanism by which information is delivered, not information in is own right, or metadata for the interpreting of information.)

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  4. Re:Not necessarily digital readers, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    t's a leap, but it's not as big as you think. It's not so much that Beatrix Potter was pining away for the day when you could have a book that changed what its only page looked like rather than having to flip pages. It's that she conceived of another way of presenting the story other than the conventional book form, and that shows she was more likely to embrace other non-conventional forms.

    It's a bigger leap than you are making it out to be.

    Potter simply understood that children experience books more from a tactile standpoint, as opposed to adults who approach them primarily from a visual standpoint. All of her 'alternate' book formats were designed to appeal to young children's tactile needs, as opposed to simply being a medium which conveys information.

    So it's highly unlikely she would have bothered with any kind of e-reader at all, unless someone released one which could be chewed, bitten, hammered with, hammered upon, thrown, stacked, immersed in liquid, scratched, sniffed, folded, ripped, colored on, etc.

    Or to put it another way, Potter experimented heavily with alternative mediums since it is the medium itself which is important to children. E-readers are almost entirely opposite of this idea- the intent of an E-reader is to present a VERY 'generic' physical medium, the focus is on the content. And that's just not how kids learn and experience life.

  5. Re:Epic Fail... by thesupraman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sigh, does your two year old use books ONLY for reading?

    as I pointing out, reading does come on the list, its just not always at the top, and children
    certainly dont treat delicate electronic devices with respect that their cost and complexity
    would warrant.

    Or do you disagree with that?

    It is quite obvious that Ms.Potters approach to making a book was exactly the opposite of an e-book....