A New Creation

I decided to venture outside my typical genre for my latest ebook. I have been thinking about this for a while, and after some collaboration with my mother this book came together. My Granny's Kitchen: A Traditional British Cookbook is a collection of recipes that my late Grandmother loved to make. As I explain in the book, my Granny was a very reserved woman, but she really loved to be in the kitchen and to provide meals for her whole family. She would write recipes down on scraps of paper or tear out pages from old cookbooks and combine them to make her own creations.

My mother has kept a lot of these recipes, and with her help I put together a group of favorites that I can remember from my childhood. It was a lot of fun to go back and remember times spent in the kitchen learning how to cook with my Granny. The cover image of the book is her home, which is the place my parents now live. It is in North Wales, about a half hour from England, nestled in beautiful mountains.

I hope that people will take a look and learn about some traditional British foods, or that some British readers will rediscover some of their own favorites like I did.

Are Children Still Learning When Reading Ebooks?

A recent study by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center looked at a sample group of young children reading both traditional print books and ebooks for children. They wanted to see how the experiences of these children differed when reading the different book types. What they found was very interesting.

Overall, there were not major differences between reading comprehension between traditional print books and basic ebooks for kids. The differences came when ebooks had enhanced features such as sounds and moving images. In the case of the advanced ebooks, children actually comprehended less of the story and were less likely to be able to answer questions about what happened. The study suggested that this was because, in part, parents were less likely to engage with their children while reading an enhanced ebook (i.e. ask questions, point out key ideas), because they assumed the ebook was doing that for them.

The lesson from this study is that while all types of books certainly have their place, parents and caregivers shouldn't forget that one of the most important parts of reading is their engagement with their children. They should continue to ask questions, stimulate further discussion on the topics and make sure that their children are understanding what they are reading.