Good Night Tech Princess

Earlier this week, my husband practically met me at the door as I came home from working the closing shift at work.  Typically, when he does this, he hands me our toddler who has found new and innovative ways to defeat our feeble attempts at child proofing.  This week, it was different.  "She's just gone to bed.  I know its late, but she wants to read that story on the iPad with you.  If she's already asleep, I promised her 20 minutes tomorrow."

I grabbed my iPad, sprinted up the stairs and crept into her room - and there she was, awake and beaming because we got our story time.  Bridget, who's 6 1/2, loves reading Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio.  Our deal is that she reads all the humans, and I read everything else - but she keeps reading my parts.  Anyway, if you follow the link to our story, you'll discover a couple of things:

1) This is an online comic.  Some people may have issues with a comic or graphic novel being read for reading homework, but I'm not one of them.  She's reading - they're words - she understands what's going on - and most of her other books are heavily illustrated anyway.

2) As far as reading level goes - this should be beyond her.  Funny thing though - is that it isn't.  I read the monsters and the robots (called "clanks") because they sometimes talk strangely or in an odd font, but using the pictures and asking questions, she seems to be following the story quite nicely.

Now, does the fact that we're reading this on the iPad make any difference to her?  I probably would not have shared it with her if I was limited to what I could pull up on my laptop or desktop computer.  I could buy the books, but Bridget didn't appreciate the other graphic novels I've shown her.  Given that she does play with the page zoom, and we race to see who can tap the "next" button when we reach the bottom of each page... I think the digital format does matter.  And after our 10 minutes are up, our alarm goes off (a "Despicable Me" minion saying "hi") and we know it's time to stop.  This time, because it was late, I read an extra page or two as a bedtime story, kissed her goodnight, and crept downstairs.

When I bought the iPad, I never imagined that it would be such an important tool in our mother-daughter bonding.  If we didn't have the tech, we'd be reading something else together - but of all the books and games we've shared, she likes this one best.  And I like it too - the other Girl Genius browser tab is for me.