dreaming ebooks on ipad

Here's some video that's got me thinking. Non-fiction is no brainer for ebooks, particularly on the ipad. And I'm thinking magazines too. Check this out. (Feel free to fast forward to get to the good stuff):

(Thanks to Elizabeth Bluemle for posting this to a listserve.)

But what about fiction?  Fiction depends on the continuous dream -- getting a person to utilize imagination to make images. You don't need a lot of bells and whistles for that. What you need to do is to eliminate anything that gets in the way of the reader losing themselves in the book world -- things like eyes becoming itchy or tired, or even book heft -- a reason I don't read a lot of hardcover biographies. (I'm going to the Apple store soon so I can see what I think about reading on this thing.)

But once you've seen illustrations on the ipad, picture books seem perfect. What parent wouldn't want a library of say thirty of their kids' favorite picture books at their disposal -- particularly for travel. 

Anyway, I'm already dreaming about my ipad book. You know what I want? An animation instead of a cover, and I want simple, line drawing animations for chapter headers (particularly for kids books). You know, how kids love pulling the pull tabs that make the pop-ups move? Same thing. I need a button or a finger movement that starts and stops the animation . . . Hey, that's already invented! Thanks Apple!

So imagine the below (beautiful animation by Nina Paley) chopped up into sequences that are used as chapter headings. Yeah-oh-yeah!

And as for a cover animation, I'd love to have the collage sequence from Sita Sings the Blues -- it's about in the middle (when the big break-up occurs).

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming...

Comments

[Christina Rodriguez]

An animator friend and I are dreaming up picture book ideas for the iPad as well. We're crossing our fingers that we can get this off the ground!