more evidence of the death of paper

due to the availability of audiobooks, only ten percent of blind children in this country learn to read Braille.

progress like this makes me immeasurably sad. i'm sure blind children are free to learn Braille if they want to and, when given the choice, simply prefer listening to a book or the newspaper. it's advancement. technology. i accept that.

during my drive to atlanta for christmas, i listened to my very first audio book. it was alice sebold's "the lovely bones" and i liked it. it made the drive infinitely less boring. but have i "read" the book? i don't feel like i have. there's something about holding a book in your hands, feeling its weight, and smelling its spine that's part of the act of reading. i like making stacks of books on my bedside table, using friends' business cards or photos as bookmarks, carrying books in my purse simply to weigh my bag down. and this is why the fact that Braille is a dying art makes me sad. with it's decline, comes the decline of the physical book in the world of these children. of course, the very act of reading is visual. and thus, by virtue of that fact, a blind person will never be able to "read" a book like i can. nonetheless, i still believe that books are something that even blind children should experience because they are more than the words on the page. we should be seasoning their lives with libraries instead of handing them headphones.