Last Saturday I was in Bury St Edmund's at the annual conference of the Federation of Children's Book Groups, which was advertised as being about 'The Power of the Page'. I'd been asked to give a seminar and decided to take these words literally. I'd talk, I thought, about the physical page - the power of real books and what they can give you that the very best digital devices cannot.
I am not a Luddite, nor a hater of techonology. I am devoted to my new iPad Mini and write my novels straight on to my laptop. I am an addicted Twitterer and a very prolific writer of emails. But when it comes to reading (and I read a great deal) I'm not in the least attracted to the idea of curling up in an armchair with anything other than a real paper book.
Love of the page starts young. Remember how it felt when you were a tiny child to have a huge expanse of paper which you were allowed to cover with coloured paint? How did you feel every September when you were issued with lovely new exercise books, all nicely lined and sometimes, excitingly, with pink margins? Can you still sniff the particular smell of the stationery cupboard? How about Post-its? Aren't they delightful? Don't you just love tearing one off and sticking it to something? That's pages for you: ready to take whatever marks you're going to make, ready to become almost anything.
Anyone who is a stationery freak like me will know the seductive power of the page. Even though I write books straight on to the computer, I still have whole drawers full of pretty notebooks. There is something powerful about the handwritten word, which accounts for how moved we are by seeing, say, a page of a Dickens manuscript, or a Keats poem with the corrections made by his pen still visible. Pages are fragile. They can be destroyed, burned, damaged in many ways, but somehow they abide and when they do we are grateful for it.
Now imagine a very small child reading a very large book. Picture books are often big. They have smooth and sometimes shiny pages. They are full of beautiful images.
The child is sitting on the lap of the person who loves her and whom she loves. Behind the child is a body. Around the child are arms, and hands holding a book up for her to see. The child is surrounded. The world depicted on the page is one in which she can immerse herself. She can be swallowed up, so to speak, in what the illustrator and writer have created for her. I believe that any child who is introduced to books in this way will grow up associating reading with pleasure and that's the way to create future readers.
Another child likes to look at details. He's fond of small books, child-sized books, such as the Beatrix Potter stories or Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library. He likes to pore over every creature, every flower, every small thing that's there on the edges. He likes to turn the pages, to move about in the physical book. He likes to be able to hold the book as he walks around. He can put it in a bag, or under his pillow at night or by his plate at the table. It's practical, handy, and of all the objects I can think of, the one most suitable for the purpose it was intended for.
Not all books are picture books, however. Later on, children read stories. Surely it is of no consequence how they read them? If they're enjoying the narrative does it matter that it's digitally conveyed? In one sense of course it doesn't and if there are children out there who devour books on a device, then good luck to them and I would never try to stop them. But when you're on an iPad, let's say, it's very easy indeed to press a button which will transport you instantly away from the words on the page to music, videos, games and emails etc. The temptation to press that magic button if your attention wanders for a bit is huge. I can already hear people saying, 'Oh, but you can put a book down and close it', and that's true. I'd still contend that closing the book and going to do something else deliberately, after some thought, is different from skipping at will between several different pastimes. It's surely much easier to lose yourself in a book if the physical book is there, in your hands, far from other distractions. Also, paper books never need recharging, never need a WiFi connection, never don't work as they should.
There is, too, the beauty of the book in front of you. It has an elegant font. The pages have heft and texture. The paragraphs make a pattern on the paper. There is a cover that you like the look and feel of. There might be paper engineering. And best of all, when you've finished reading, your book can take its place on the bookshelf and sit there for ever. Not only 'furnishing a room' but also acting as a memory box. Who gave you the book? Where were you when you read it? What does it bring into your mind when you take it off the shelf years later? Every single book has its own 'life', and its physical presence in your house reminds you of what that might be.
Steve Barlow was there at my second seminar and he made the point that each successive manifestation of the written word was frowned upon by the one before. Monks, he said, were unhappy about printing. Makers of scrolls didn't think much of bound books... and so on. He's right of course, but I would say this in response. The digital method of reading is fine for many things, especially for students. I have no objection to all textbooks being downloaded on to a Kindle and presented to every Year 7 child. But the beauty and power of the paper book is still there and will always (I think, I hope) survive. It's not accidental that books which are doing well these days and better than their digital counterparts are gorgeously-produced hardbacks. The page rules. (Adèle Geras)
[First illustration by Jane Ray. Second illustration by Emma Chichester Clark]
