And the children shall lead them; to the past?

Yes, folks were talking about children's books, old-fashioned children's books printed the old-fashioned way where you have to hold them between you and your child and read aloud to them. According to a story in today's NYTimes those darn kids just don't want to be e-read at bedtime.

They want print, paper, ink, shapes, sizes, things to hold onto, or as one Dad put it, to “spit up on.” His rationale: “a book may be easier to clean up than a tablet.” Yech!

While e-readers proliferate, according to the Times, it's the parents themselves who prefer turning the pages of real books with their children at bedtime. So let's hear it for 2-1/2 year old Georgia who, according to her mother, “reads only print books.” And Mom works for a digital company.

They are definitely conflicted, these 24/7-wired-to-the-hilt parents. They know that soon enough their offspring will be hi-tech all the way but something about childhood demands the discipline of learning to hold, read and turn the pages of a real book.

With luck, that habit could last a lifetime, or as long as what they call “dead-tree” books are published. I'm rooting for the toddlers.

Quoting one parent from the Times' story: “If he's going to pick up the iPad, he's not going to read, he's going to want to play a game. So reading concentration goes out the window.”

Is that what all those people are doing on their hand-held devices? Playing games when they could be reading Tolstoy?

No wonder the birds are angry.