Reading on a Kindle

When the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook first came out, I couldn't imagine using one to read on. I love to read and love the feel of a solid book in my hands. At one point I finally had a chance to get a Kindle and fell instantly in love. I have had it for 3 or more years at this point and my actual style of Kindle is no longer made. I have a Kindle Keyboard which makes it easy to type into the Kindle if I am looking up an author or a word from the dictionary. Even when reading a 'regular' book now, if I run into a word I don't know the meaning of, I will look it up in my Kindle rather than having to get up and pull a very heavy dictionary off the shelve, look up the word and then put the dictionary back without dropping it of breaking a fingernail. I have found that the Kindle is a blessing to my arthritic hands and if I read all evening my hands aren't screaming at me like they would a regular book, especially paperbacks.

Amazon has come out with another model of a Kindle that is reasonable priced and offers almost all the conveniences that I have wished for in my Kindle (or any book for that matter). The ability to translate a foreign language into English, instead of getting up, finding the right dictionary from our 7-8 English to Foreign Language dictionaries, and looking the words up in that super tiny font that they think all high school and college kids have the ability to read. No longer do you have to jump through several pages to get your word definition as it will display right on the page you are reading. There are other things that make it so much easier to read and understand what you are reading. I still wish they would have an on board atlas for looking up current spots on a map as well as places that no longer exist since World War II. Reading any book before the 1950's, it is especially difficult to figure out where in the world the characters are. I don't know if they are working on this, but I suppose it would be a complicated project because of all the changes over 100's of years of time.

With the holidays coming you may want to consider a Kindle for you child that is meant for children only. It is the regular Kindle only bundled for children, with a 2-year long guarantee period, it has the ability to not allow a child to download 'adult' books, it is thinner and lighter for a child to hold, and it can help a child set reading goals. It comes with a vocabulary builder, dictionary, etc. It doesn't have games or email which means when you child is looking at their Kindle, they are reading! I have always felt that books are one of the best presents for children and so you might want to think about this gift for your child with the holidays coming!

Deciding to buy one now you can save up the money as well as being on the lookout for any sales that Amazon might have on this Kindle. If you have been good all year, you might want to do the same and move up to the newer Kindle as well.

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett. Random House 2013 ISBN 9780812993370, ebook 9780679645245

It was a total pleasure to read this book. While my son isn't the genius that Jacob in the book is, it was interesting to read about a woman and her autistic son, Jacob, that in many ways traveled some of the same paths that I have been traveling for year. This is a very special book which showed not only the help she gave her son, but also other autistic children. The author, Kristine Barnett, is a very giving woman even though dealing with chronic physical problems and another child in the family that also had special needs.
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Here is the review that I wrote for Amazon.

I could so much relate to this woman's story and how she is raising her autistic/genius son. No, I don't have a genius son, but I do have an autistic son who is rather bright and in many ways their stories are roughly parallel. The author tells the story of how her son who seemed normal at birth became more and more distant and different as he got older till at around age 2 he became non-verbal. Then she hunted down the doctors, therapists, and treatment ideas that would hopefully be able to help her son. She found though, that their ideas didn't seem to be doing much for her son and at times seemed almost detrimental. Please note that she is not knocking these people trained in dealing with autistic people, only that what they were doing didn't work for her and her son Jacob. I ran into the same thing when I was having trouble getting my son to eat. The recommendation: if he doesn't eat dinner, send him to bed hungry and he will soon learn to eat his dinner. Well, two mornings with my son throwing up on the kitchen floor due to being too hungry was enough for me. That didn't work and I wasn't about to see just how many mornings my son would be sick until he decided to eat supper because some childless therapist thought it was a great idea. I doubt that any therapist would give that sort of advice now, but that was close to 30 years ago when as much wasn't known about treating autistic children.

The author learned to combine her talents as a mother and a daycare provider with how she helped her son. As she started to notice and encourage his unique talents to get him to react to everyday situations and to talk, he started to respond. I called this going through the backdoor with my son. Instead of the normal frontal approach, you have to go out back and find a different way, or many different ways of reaching these children. Happily Jacob responded and then was able to pour his intellect into math, physics, and astronomy.

This book is one about hope and finding each child's unique talent or interest to help them come into normal relationships. Well written by one very busy mother whose family spent everything they had to not only help Jacob but also to open a center for other autistic children where they can participate in activities that usually they are kept out of such as sports of all kinds (many autistic children have coordination problems). If you have an autistic child and are looking for new ideas to help them, this book just might give you some answers and food for thought, although I'm sure that it will upset some mainstream providers of care.

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I hope many of you will read this book or pass it on to families that are coping with autism in any of its shapes and forms.



  

Borders Will now be selling E-Books

I just got an email this morning that Borders is jumping on the ebook bandwagon and starting in June will be selling an ebook reader called Kobo ereader and will be selling e-books from their stores that can be used with any ebook reader including your computer and can also read your own computer files if they are in PDF file. The new reader will run $149.99. So now you have your choice among Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook or a good old fashioned paper book.