There are days when you wake up and find reasons for hope. I read that the Bologna Fair has shown that children continue to adore the paper book, even if they live surrounded by screens. The illustrated tale maintains the same magnetism as always, and the truth is that it does not adapt well to the tablet.
The book in general resists well the changes brought about by the technological leap that our lives have made in the last twenty years. At the Frankfurt Fair in 2008, the end of the traditional book medium was prophesied within a decade, in favor of the electronic format, but this has not happened. More paper books are sold than ever, while those read on a screen maintain an acceptable market share. But the children's book in all versions (illustrated, printed, with pop-ups) wins the battle by a landslide.
It has its logic. Who does not remember his first illustrated readings with the same delight that Proust felt for the muffins soaked in tea during his childhood? Beyond pleasure, Gregorio Luri provides the following data to determine its importance in Sobre el arte de leer (Platform): the child who does not have books at home presents, when compulsory schooling ends, a cognitive delay of a year and a half with respect to those who have one hundred and 2.2 years with those who have more than five hundred.
And in case anyone had any doubts, the author includes the conclusions of a study published by the University of Columbia according to which, the reading fluency of a six-year-old child allows us to predict his school results at 16, and the ability to read and write at 16 allows us to guess a person's salary at 42.
The WHO recommends that children do not use screens before the age of two and that they do not spend more than an hour on them, by the age of four. Instead, he recommends reading as the best sedentary activity. The book awakens children's imagination, allows them to share and socialize, but will also help them in their school results. Bologna shows us the way. Modernity is also paper stories. And these never run out of battery, nor do they allow access to hackers.
