Why Every Kid Should Own a Kindle

If you have children in your family, do them one of the best favors you can and make sure that they have a Kindle ebook reader from Amazon. This isn't just some hub to hawk a few Kindles and make a few cents, I steadfastly believe that every kid should own one. Why? Because e-book readers like the Kindle can do things for a child that paper books simply don't do and that is to connect them to a much broader learning experience than can ever be captured in a finite number of pages.

I think Amazon made a big mistake by calling their Kindle an ebook reader because it so very much more than that, it is a real learning opportunity. They should have called it an e-Learner or something clever like that. I came to this conclusion from my own experiences with reading things like Kipling and Jack London on my Kindle. At first I recognized the obvious benefit of not having to lug around a pocket dictionary (something I was never without as a lad). If I didn't know a word, i could just click on it and my friendly, little Kindle would immediately provide me with a definition. Glorious! A world of meanings at my finger tips and completely free of charge, my Scottish father's favorite price.

But then I started to notice something else about my Kindle that is a vast improvement over a paper book. More than just providing the definition of obscure or antiquated words, my Kindle was opening up an entire series of encyclopedias to me. When Kipling or London or Conrad spoke about something from their time or from another country, I would have no way of knowing what that was exactly without access to an Encyclopedia Britannica or the internet. but with my Kindle, the exact meaning was one, simple click away. "What's this tiffin that Kipling keeps referring to?" I asked myself and viola! In a single click I knew exactly what it was.

To illustrate my point, if you don't know what tiffin is then you now understand perfectly the frustrations and limitations of paper books. Incidentally the spellchecker on Hubpages doesn't seem to know what it is either.

Amazon should have called the Kindle a Reader Enhancer because that is a much more accurate description of what it does. It's so much more than just a book replacement, it's an educational tool that has a potential I am sure we have not even considered yet. So do the children in your family a favor and give them the gift of education by giving hem a Kindle.

And then make sure that they read at least one Jack London book!

The biggest concern non-Kindle users have about Amazon's ebook reader is that it will strain their eyes. It won't. If you've never used a Kindle before you might think that's it's going to be like looking at a computer screen. It doesn't. A book page on your Kindle looks almost exactly like a real book. Easy to read, no eye strain and you can read it for hours upon hours.

For the record, I love paper books and still lug quite a collection around with me, even on board my tiny boat. When I was a young man living in my car at one stage, my entire trunk was filled to the brim with paper books. For me the smell and feel of a real book is irreplaceable and I feel a distinct pang of regret that future generations will almost certainly be robbed of that tactile experience.

Nevertheless, in all other aspects a Kindle is immensely superior to a paper book. Added to which, I can download new books anytime I want and have them within moments. And on top of all that, there is an enormous amount of free books available for the Kindle that you can download directly from Amazon.com or many other ebook sites. No bookstore that I know of was giving away free books the last time I checked.

Do you think that, in the future, libraries will become museums that schools take their kids on historic tours of? I can imagine it now, the teacher saying "That's right kids, in olden times people had to write everything they knew down on sheets of paper and bind them together. These 'books' as they were called were kept in huge buildings like this called ye olde library."

"I'll never own a Kindle! Nothing could replace the look, feel and smell of real books." Boy, did I have to eat my words. I now have 504 books on my Kindle from such literary giants such as Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Alexandre Dumas and more and I didn't pay a single penny for any of them. If you know where to look there are literally tens of thousands of free books that you can legally download and read. No tricks, no scams, no catches.

Public Domain Books

Books that are in he Public Domain means that anyone can do with them whatever they please. If you've ever walked into a Barnes and Noble you will see great stacks of the classics, usually hard bound, going for bargain basement prices. The reason is because no one owns them so no author has to be paid for the rights to print, publish and sell them. There are numerous reasons that a book might fall into the Public Domain and I won't get into that here, but search for it on Bing.com if you are interested in the details.

Free Kindle Books

Amazon itself even provides these Public Domain books for free for your Kindle, maybe as a kind of a reward for buying their wonderful ebook reader. Just go to Amazon.com and choose Kindle Store as the search option and look for a book. You'll be surprised how many of them are 100% free to download and read instantly.