Reimagining the Textbook

The Risks and Rewards of Electronic Reading Devices

By Michael L. Miles & Bruce S. Cooper

The word “kindle” usually refers to fire, using “kindling,” or small pieces of wood, to build a flame. But in today’s high-tech marketplace, an electronic reading device called Kindle , marketed by the online bookseller Amazon.com, has started another kind of fire, igniting competitive forces in a movement to deliver books and other written materials in fast, inexpensive ways that fit more easily into the computer age.

Though Kindle is the best-known of these electronic readers, Sony and other companies have developed their own devices, and the bookseller Barnes & Noble plans to offer its version, the Nook , on Nov. 30. All may soon be vying for the favor of one extremely active book-buyer: America’s public schools.

The devices are small, portable, and relatively inexpensive. They are softly readable, with little of the glare often associated with computer screens. And material can be downloaded in seconds from a potential listing of millions of books, for little cost per tome. Some offer instant access to tools such as dictionaries, so viewers are able to look up words as they read. And the devices...