screen-based future awaiting our
children — and the way this new
Kindle trains them for it. It’s the
literary equivalent of near beer.
Resistance is not futile. From the
start, most children need and crave
the tactile interaction that real
books provide. Their rapidly devel-
oping fine motor skills evolve
alongside their delight with illus-
trations and the pleasure of turn-
ing pages. They move from chew-
ing the covers to feeling the paper,
as the wonder of one double-page
spread unfolds to the next.
As they get older, we should be in
no rush to lure them away from the
talismanic aura of real books. For-
get about efficiency. Kids don’t feel
burdened by carrying physical
books; they feel girded with the
tools of their own entertainment.
They clutch them, they rearrange
them, they show them off, and, most
SEE BOOK WORLD ON C2to the next level.” The next level, if
you don’t know, is flashcards.
Amazon bills this device as the
“first-ever dedicated reading ex-
perience built just for kids.” So
much for my old copy of “Mr.
Popper’s Penguins.”
I’m no Luddite (I have two Kin-
dles and love them), but the arrival
of this Kindle Kids Edition is mak-
ing me fantasize about smashing
the looms. There comes a point
when we need to look critically at
how electronic devices are corrod-
ing our lives. The iPhone has al-
ready ravaged dinnertime. Now
these purveyors of technology are
coming for bedtime.
With a clever bit of preemptive
spin, the Amazon website de-
clares, “Kindle Kids Edition is de-
signed just for reading, which
means no distractions from apps,
videos or games.” But that only
highlights the mind-numbingBY RON CHARLESMore than 15 years ago, the late
Italian writer Umberto Eco said,
“Books belong to those kinds of
instruments that, once invented,
have not been further improved
because they are already all right,
such as the hammer.”
For some perverse reason, we’re
still determined to prove Eco
wrong.
Introducing the new and im-
proved hammer: This week, Ama-
zon released the Kindle Kids Edi-
tion, “ideal for both beginner and
experienced chapter book read-
ers.” (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
owns The Washington Post.) It’s
the familiar six-inch e-reader
spruced up with a cute case and
access to more than a thousand
child-friendly books. Tiger Moms
will love the built-in dictionary
and word lists that “take reading
KLMNO
Style
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE C
BOOK WORLDKindle Kids is to books what technology is to magic
Why, in the landscape of childhood, the Hundred Acre Wood looms larger on the page than on the screen
ISTOCKBY JADA YUANStepping
forward
on the trail
Joint appearance by Melania Trump, Karen Pence
sends the message of a united front for campaign
MIC SMITH/APFirst lady Melania Trump and second lady Karen Pence on Wednesday at Joint Base Charleston
in South Carolina, where the executive branch wives attended school and military events.and casino owner accused of using campaign
money as hush payments to a porn-star
mistress, the other an evangelical Christian
art teacher married to a man who has said he
won’t dine alone with any woman besides her.
The contrasts were apparent Wednesday
morning as the women arrived by motorcade
to Joint Base Andrews in Washington for their
flight to Joint Base Charleston on a Boeing
C-32 aircraft called Executive Foxtrot One.
Pence in short heels and a dark brown
pantsuit. Trump towering over her in Loubou-
tin stilettos, in an olive-green trench coat she
never took off and whose tied belt she
adjusted constantly.
When they greeted the officers present to
welcome them, though, Trump seemed to be
following Pence’s lead, flashing her quiet
glances and smiles throughout the day. Three
years in Trump may be continuing to adjust to
being a first lady, but Pence spent years as a
governor’s wife and political spouse.
The positions of first and second lady are
unelected and unpaid, but they are potent
strategic messengers — which Trump and
SEE LADIES ON C2BY PAUL FARHIOver the course of two weeks,
White House press secretary
Stephanie Grisham may have out-
Sarah Sanders-ed Sarah Sanders.
Sanders, President Trump’s for-
mer chief spokeswoman, could be
blunt in taking on the president’s
critics and perceived enemies, in-
cluding people in the media. But
Grisham, her successor, has lately
turned the rhetoric up to sand-
blaster level. Her comments in
recent days have tested, if not
exceeded, the usual boundaries of
presidential press secretaries:
Replying to former chief of
staff John F. Kelly, who said in an
interview that he warned Trump
about hiring “yes men,” Grisham
over the weekend said, “I worked
with John Kelly, and he was totally
unequipped to handle the genius
of our great President.”
Grisham agreed with her
boss’s assessment last week that
“Never Trump” Republicans are
“human scum.” On Fox News, she
said, “The people who are against
him, and who have been against
him, and have been working
against him since the day they
took office are just that.”
After career diplomat, Viet-
nam veteran and U.S. Military
Academy graduate William Taylor
testified in the Democratic-led
impeachment inquiry last week,
she issued a statement referring
to Taylor and the proceeding as “a
coordinated smear campaign
from far-left lawmakers and radi-
cal unelected bureaucrats waging
war on the Constitution.”
Following the release of un-
dercover videos of CNN employ-
ees alleging an anti-Trump bias at
the network earlier this month,
Grisham offered this bit of media
criticism on Twitter: “CNN’s cor-
porate leaders have failed the
American people. They have also
failed their own employees.”
The sharp-tongued commen-
tary is all part of the job, says
Grisham, who took over for Sand-
ers in July.
“It is literally my job to support
and defend the President, so it is
odd to me that I am being asked to
defend or explain ‘comments in
support’ of my boss,” she said in an
exchange of emails. “Previous press
secretaries have also used [strong
language], so again, not sure why I
am being singled out here.”
Grisham has regularly echoed
Trump’s broadsides or fired off
her own, especially as congres-
sional Democrats have ramped up
their impeachment proceedings.
SEE GRISHAM ON C4No mincing
of words
from press
secretary
BY HANK STUEVERHe’s been dead long enough for
it to hardly matter, yet I wonder
whether Steve Jobs ever thought
Apple would turn into a TV net-
work? With the mountain of
wealth the company now sits on, it
could afford to be just about any-
thing it wants — an airline, its own
nation, you name it. That it has
decided to spend several hundred
million dollars (chump change) to
challenge other streaming content
providers is somewhat fascinating
and, if we’re being entirely honest,
exhausting. More TV shows? An-
other monthly subscription? Sigh.
After a long gestation period,
Apple TV+ launched Friday. In just
about all of its offerings — starting
glamorously yet unevenly with
“The Morning Show,” which I’ve
already reviewed — you don’t see
much in the way of identity or
overall sensibility, but you can see
Apple’s money being well spent on
quality concepts from decorated
TV pros, starring actors you prob-
ably want to watch. The auxiliary
shows are also name-brand af-
fairs, such as a reboot for Oprah’s
book club and children’s program-
ming from the Sesame Workshop
SEE TV REVIEWS ON C2TV REVIEWSThe apples
of my eye
from new
service
north charleston, s.c. — Two women
whose husbands’ ambitions have bound their
lives together made a trip Wednesday to
South Carolina.
Melania Trump and Karen Pence might
never have met had they not become first and
second lady of the United States. But during
Trump’s first visit to South Carolina as first
lady, to attend events with schoolchildren and
military families, they presented a friendly,
united front.
Their visit occurred on the eve of a congres-
sional vote to advance the impeachment
inquiry, proceedings that the White House
has called “an illegitimate sham.” Still, for
these two women they hold the possibility —
however unlikely — that Donald Trump could
be removed from office and Mike Pence could
replace him.
“They certainly come from different walks
of life — international model versus Indiana
homebody,” says Katherine Jellison, a profes-
sor of history at Ohio University.
One born and raised in Slovenia, the other
in Indiana by way of Kansas. One 49, the other- One the wife of a New York City billionaire