I have to use my iPad on the sly. Not because I’m viewing anything dodgy or nefarious (except, maybe, for the odd search for info on Matthew McConaughey), but because my 14 month old is addicted to technology. As soon as I pick up the darn thing, she clambers onto my lap and slides her fingers across the screen. She knows where her apps are filed, and will jump straight to the talking giraffe game. When she tires of that, she finds the word processor setting and practises her typing. I had found her techno-savvy endearing, until I handed her a “real” book and she “turned” the page by swiping her finger, as one would on a tablet computer. It had me worried that books would never hold the same appeal. With the e-books now available, she can interact with the characters and join them in sing-a-longs. Surely she’ll find the two-dimensionality of books boring? I wonder whether we’re depriving our children of a love of literature by introducing them to technology too soon? I hope not. As an only child, my relationship with books and the companionship they offered started at an early age. My childhood would not have been the same without Moonface and Dame Washalot from The Magic Faraway Tree. It was my father who taught me to read; painstakingly taking me through Beauty and the Beast sentence by sentence. I have lovingly carted these childhood books with me each time I have moved – I’m hopeful that my children will also fall in love with their magic.

So, I am making sure that books, and I mean the old-fashioned kind with pages that you can turn, are always accessible. I’ve snuck them into Erin’s toy box, so they become part of her play, and I have limited my computer time to the evening, when she is asleep. My efforts are paying off. Erin loves paging through her little books, and she brings them to me to read with her. Now if only I can get her to stop playing with my Blackberry…