Reading a Booker shortlisted novel on my iPad

I always follow the Booker Prize, from the longlist and shortlist announcements through to the big night, which in recent years I've followed on twitter. I love to read and have a mostly old-fashioned relationship with my favourite pastime. I still prefer independent booksellers and I have been known to select a volume purely on the quality of the binding. So I am a little surprised to be promoting iBooks so enthusiastically. I've just purchased Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch, a great writer who I am lucky enough to count as a friend. I found it easily enough in the iBook store and purchasing it was as simple as entering my Apple PIN. (Incidentally, it's a great read!)

Turning the page of your newly purchased ibook, using the little red book mark, looking up a word in the dictionary or annotating the text, the functions of iBooks are a show case for everything that is beautiful about Apple products. As a book lover I feel that the maker of this product has truly understood what it is I love about a book and has captured that in pure digital mastery.

Many parents have asked me if I will stil be using hard copy for reading in class and the answer is a resounding, YES. In class we will use electronic and hard books, just as we will use Pages and write with a pencil. Research suggests that once digital learners become engaged in their learning they are more likely to start accessing a greater variety of learning resources and this usually includes borrowing more books from the library.

iBooks is a straightwards way of accessing reading material that I'm recommending to all the young readers in my class. I have purchased for them twenty sample chapters of books and after the hioliday we will have a class vote to decide which books we shall buy in full. They get to choose from some great children's writers including Antony Horowitz, Louise Rennison, Lemony Snicket, Malorie Blackman, Terry Pratchett, Jacqueline Wilson and Eoin Colfer.

However, a word of warning if you are considering a similar reading project in school. The iBook free samples are great but you need to check them because whereas some publishers give readers a whole chapter for free other publishers give little more than a front cover and a bibliography of the author's other published works.