4: Children’s E-books as a Genre

The digital genre I chose was children’s e-books. Children’s e-books are just like regular e-books because they display print, have pages, a table of contents, etc. However, their difference is they contain elaborate, colorful pictures and sometimes are accompanied by games, audio features, and sometimes animation. What makes this genre interesting to me is its links to “[promoting] early literacy concepts and skills” (Roskos et al). I was also surprised to find that the problem with children’s e-books is they “reduce meaningful engagement with story and print” (Roskos et al) because of the multimedia features provided in the e-book. I’m curious to see what else I can find on that stance.

One of the problems with researching this genre is a lot of the research is the same. In fact, I’m having a hard time finding a source that only explains what a children’s e-book is. Another problem, at first, was finding good examples of e-books that I would be able to read entirely without having to pay for it. Alas, this leads to my greatest triumph. I found a website called Epic! that provides a subscription service so you can read all the children’s e-books you want. Now don’t worry I didn’t have to pay to subscribe because, thankfully, the first month was free. I’m excited to include this website in my wiki because it has so many great features that I think will be a great addition to it.

As I read “Among the Audience” I started thinking about the children who have grown up with digitally published works as their main source for reading. Lunsford and Ede said: “even though many of our students are completely at ease in the digital landscape, they nevertheless need to become more knowledgeable about the nature and complexity of the audience.” They also mentioned that students need to be aware the internet is not private so therefore it always has an audience. I wonder how children growing up today will learn this concept.

Word Count: 332

Works Cited

Lunsford, Andrea A., Ede, Lisa. “Among the Audience”: On Audience in an Age of New Literacies. n.d.

Roskos, Kathleen, et al. “Investigating Analytic Tools for E-Book Design in Early Literacy Learning.” Journal of Interactive Online Learning, vol. 8, no. 3, 01 Dec. 2009, pp. 218-240. EBSCOhost,         libgateway.susqu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ938831&site=eds-live&scope=site.