It's a Book

Lane Smith strikes again. I love John, Paul, George, and Ben, and I love The Happy Hocky Family Moves to the Country, and now's the time to share my love for It's a Book. I found this one in a blowout sale at a Borders a handful of weeks ago, and had it in my hand to buy it, full of excitement, until I walked around a corner and saw the line. I've been in some lines in my time, but this line was absurd. It was like WalMart on Black Friday. So I sadly put it back on the shelf and vowed to buy it from Amazon, where no lines are involved.

Simple and to the point, It's a Book points out the flaws in our generation of technology and virtual gizmos and such. Our poor children don't know what books are. Or how to read them. Perhaps it's a little bit of an exaggeration, but I think the premise is based in a lot of reality. We text and tweet and Facebook and email and Skype and bluetooth and gchat and ichat and....etc. We download books onto our Kindles/Nooks. We really are a generation of instant gratification and the newest toys. We really like our toys. And books aren't really toys (not for the general person anyway. The floor of my room shows that I obviously am an exception.) Lane Smith addresses this issue with Monkey and Donkey. Monkey has a book. Donkey isn't quite sure what it is. The plot thickens.

This book is hilarious, witty, clever, and obvious in its message. We need to take a step back and see what it is we're abandoning for the sake of the next best thing. For goodness sake, kids need to know how to read a book. I think it would be an awesome first or second day introduction to the school year, in which the teacher sets the stage for lots of reading, none of which will take place via text message.

Fun fact: the book is on youtube [HERE] courtesy of Macmillan.