Review 1: E-book from Epic!

Title: Unicorn (and Horse) by David W. Miles, illustrated by Hollie Mengert

Miles, D. (2018). Unicorn (and Horse). Familius LLC. https://www.getepic.com/app/read/49864

For the purpose of this review, an e-book was chosen from the website called Epic! Epic is a digital library of e-books, read-to-me books, audiobooks and videos aimed at an audience of children in grades K-5. While the platform has all of these e-literacy options a standard e-book version or “linear e-narrative”, as proposed by Unsworth (2006, p. 69), was chosen to review. This book was chosen to review with comparison to the enhanced version and print version.

Unicorn (and Horse) is a story about 2 main characters with a strained friendship fraught with jealousy. Unicorn is wonderful in many ways, and due to this Horse is jealous of Unicorn. This story uses humour and digital illustrations to teach young readers a lesson about jealousy, making choices, kindness and friendship (Miles, 2018). This book has been distributed in a print version but interestingly, the illustrations by Hollie Mengert, were created digitally (The Art of Hollie Mengert, 2020).

To access this e-book version, one must sign-up to Epic either as a parent or an educator. For educators, Epic is free using a school email and entering the name of the school. For parents, Epic is free for a 30-day trial. The subscription costs $7.99 USD per monthly subscription or $6 a month ($72) on a yearly subscription (Epic Help Center, 2020). Depending on socio-economic status, Epic may more likely be used in schools which have access to devices rather than at home due to the cost incurred by families.

This text can align with social and emotional learning curricula for the purpose of self-management and social awareness (Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, 2020). More specifically, the target audience of the text is young readers of a lower primary age. This could align with social and emotional lessons for lower primary students to “describe ways to express emotions to show awareness of the feelings and needs of others” (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, n.d.-a).

The quality of the content of this e-book version is similar to that of the print version in terms of font, illustration and their placement. It is portrayed as the original book just on a screen. While this familiarity works for the literature, the e-book on Epic is lacking the ability for the reader to view the front cover of the book in full. When handling the print version, the front cover can be where children can explore literature in a hands-on manner and learn about concepts of print. It is in this case that the original print version can be preferable due to the screen preventing the impact of this print book quality (Yokota & Teale, 2014).

However, the e-book does provide the exact same illustrations as the traditional text. With this characteristic kept intact, Walsh (2013) states that, when literary quality and digital features integrate effectively, it can be suitable in digital form. Duke et al. (2013) converse that “the ability to read graphics or illustrations is becoming as important as the ability to read written text” (p. 176). With keeping this large component of the literature the same, the digital version is doing the original version justice and giving the reader access to a text they might not have had previously by means of accessing it online.

There are some basic animations that mimic the page being turned. Representing a page being turned upon a haptic touch can give some familiarity of a printed book back to the reader. Perhaps this can lessen the gap of “haptic dissonance” (Gerlach & Buxmann, 2011) as a point of adversity to the technology. Interestingly, Biancarosa and Griffiths (2012) synthesized from studies that there were some encouraging effects on preschool to fifth-grade learners’ comprehension when e-books imitated features of printed texts, for example; by having pages that turn.

The e-book offers affordances for the reader that the print version does not. For example, the reader can click or hover over words to bold that word. This could be used as a means for tracking their reading. Readers can also click on keywords to receive a dictionary definition and pronunciation of the word. These key features provided by the technology could afford significant learning opportunities for early readers and English as Additional Language (EAL) learners. There is also a zoom feature, which can provide support to readers with low visibility. Both of these digital qualities provide equal access to text by these specific learners, who might have previously been impeded (Biancarosa & Griffiths, 2012). These are experiences that the digital version offers to readers that the print version cannot (Yokota & Teale, 2014).

Finally, upon finishing the book there is an added incentive of the reader receiving points. These points then also add up to receiving badges of what books they are reading and how many. Perhaps this is thought necessary by the app due to this digital generation being less and less able to sustain prolonged deep reading (Liu, 2005), and so it must offer more extrinsic incentive. Teachers or parents can also keep track of what children are reading through the app. This information includes book genres, minutes spent reading and what types of digital literature they are using such as e-books, audiobooks or videos.

 

References 

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (n.d.-a). Personal and social capability learning continuum. Personal and Social Capability. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/1078/general-capabilities-personal-and-social-capability-learning-continuum.pdf

Biancarosa, G., & Griffiths, G. G. (2012). Technology tools to support reading in the digital age. The Future of Children. 22(2). 139-160. https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/article/508199

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. (2020). https://casel.org/core-competencies/

Duke, N., Norman, R., Roberts, K., Martin, N., Knight, J., Morsink, P., & Calkins, S. (2013). Beyond Concepts of Print: Development of Concepts of Graphics in Text, PreK to Grade 3. Research in the Teaching of English, 48(2), 175-203. www.jstor.org/stable/24398654

Epic Help Center. (2020). Subscriptions & billing. https://getepic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/200390025-Subscriptions-Billing

Gerlach, J., & Buxmann, P. (2011). Investigating the acceptance of electronic books- The impact of Haptic Dissonance on innovation adoption. ECIS 2011 Proceedings. Association for Information Systems, AIS Electronic Library. https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2011/141/?utm_source=aisel.aisnet.org%2Fecis2011%2F141&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages

Liu, Z. (2005). Reading behavior in the digital environment: Changes in reading behavior over the past ten years. Journal of Documentation, 61(6), 700-712. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00220410510632040

Miles, D. (2018). Unicorn (and Horse). Familius LLC. https://www.getepic.com/app/read/49864

The Art of Hollie Mengert. (2020, August 15). https://holliemengert.com/unicorn-and-horse

Unsworth, L. (2006). E-literature for children: Enhancing digital literacy learning. ProQuest Ebook Central. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csuau/reader.action?docID=198496

Walsh, M. (2013). Literature in a digital environment. In L. McDonald (Ed.), A literature companion for teachers. (pp. 181-194). Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA). https://doms.csu.edu.au/csu/file/863c5c8d-9f3f-439f-a7e3-2c2c67ddbfa8/1/ALiteratureCompanionforTeachers.pdf

Yokota, J., & Teale, W. H. (2014). Picture books and the digital world: Educators making informed choices. The Reading Teacher, 67(8), 577-585. http://doi:10.1002/trtr.1262