Ten writers for children. All with something to say.

3/25/10

End of publishing?

Remember the records? Some people still have them and play them in their hi-fi. Remember the tapes? I still have many of mine and I play them in my 1997 car tape player. Now we have CDs. And the records are coming back!

The first program I saw on TV was in black and white. We put a plastic sheet on the screen that had green at the bottom to show the green grass, pink in the middle to show faces, and blue at the top to show the sky. After that, technology has advanced faster than I have grown older. How, I wonder, did we live without computers and cell phones? They are so convenient!

We won't be able to stop this trend, and we should embrace it. How great it is that books have been on tape and CDs! Why not online? That is, as long as it is legal. (I, along everyone else, am a victim of Goggle.) I don't like reading a story online. If online, I prefer to print it, then read it. But young people have been raised with computers. Some of my students compose better stories in the computer than by hand (as you know my first drafts are always done by hand.) Some readers may prefer stories online. As long as we have readers, let's give them all formats.

I doubt books will disappear. Besides, I have so much faith in the youth. Here is a poem that says it better than I can. Please watch it until it ends. It will surprise you and it will warm your heart.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Weq_sHxghcg

4 comments:

john said...

Carmen, thanks for the link. Very well done.
I'm on the first-draft-by-hand team as well.

Edie Hemingway said...

Carmen,

The start of the video was very discouraging, but I loved the complete switch and ending on a positive note. Thanks for sharing!

Lauren said...

It took me awhile to find the time to watch the video-- and I am glad that I finally did! Surprising. I too am of the hand-written first draft-- it is more like drawing to me- drawing out those ideas. Thanks Carmen--

David LaRochelle said...

My first five or six drafts are longhand. I think differently when I write out by hand, and I like to see several different word choices/phrases next to each other on the paper and to be able to go back and forth between them.

Your plastic screen for creating a color television sounds like a wonderful collector's item, Carmen. You don't still have it, do you?