Books are an aid, a tool which is meant for children to learn and move ahead on the path of education. Ever since I can remember kids consider books as their biggest enemy. But books have continued to help them in their endeavour to study. In most cases kids and books don’t go hand in hand. Parents and teachers are the people who befriend books and forcefully make children read them.
However strongly kids dislike studying from books, they form an indispensible part of a child’s education.
Learning books for children are available in a wide span of categories like :-
- Early learning- which include numbers, alphabets and colours
- A step ahead- which includes picture books on animals, fruits, vegetables, modes of transport etc
- Moving forward- which includes fiction story books with moral lessons
- Learning more-which includes simple math based calculations in a pictorial manner, tables etc
- High up the way- Includes books on complex stuff like mythological stories, world history, current affairs etc
Classification of books can also be made on age basis like :
- Babbies and toddlers
- 3-6 years
- 6-9 years
- 9 and above.
In the ancient times when education was not allowed for everyone especially girls books had more value than now. Even during those times outdoor sports like cricket, kabaddi etc were a major distraction, children were more focused on learning. With passing time and more and more kids going to school, text books and other forms of educational books are loosing their worth.
In the modern era video games and the idiot box are a major distraction. Also majority of the children have access to internet and are given mobile phones at an early age. These are major distracters. Surfing on the net, downloading movies chatting with friends are the top priorities for today’s child. On a brighter side most of the books are now available on the internet in the form of e-books. This is a new way of learning and is being rapidly adapted by many schools. Parents too advocate this form of learning as kids today are all well acquainted with computers. With the number of nuclear families increasing e- books and internet learning are becoming popular as neither of the parent has the time to teach their child.
The above scenario best describes the situation in the well developed cities but in small towns and villages books continue to be the main source of gaining knowledge. Though slowly and gradually the internet is making its mark in the rural areas educational books are very important.
Thus it is very clear that books are becoming less important with changing times. In order to ensure that the e-books do not completely take over books have to be made more interesting, and colourful, more interesting and diverse covering a lot many topics and not just the clichéd ones.
