Oh, the pages that glow!

In snaring young readers, will e-books succeed? Seems 98 ¾ percent guaranteed

July 30, 2011|By Kathleen Pierce, Globe Correspondent

Emma Levy, 9, said she enjoys the ease of obtaining books with an e-reader:… (Suzanne Kreiter/Globe…)

In her pink bedroom in Wayland, Emma Levy keeps shelves full of books. But when the 9-year-old began her summer reading this month, she didn’t crack open a single one. Instead, she turned on her hot pink Kindle and downloaded “Ramona Quimby, Age 8’’ for $1.99.

“It’s easy,’’ she said. “If you want a book, you don’t have to wait to go to the store.’’

Her 12-year-old twin brothers, Will and Sam, recently got Kindles after seeing their sister glued to hers. They, too, have been riveted to their e-books, “The Firm’’ and “The Greatest Game Ever Played.’’

“I think it’s great,’’ said their mother, Karen Levy, of her children’s renewed interest in the written word. “I just hope it isn’t a novelty.’’

And so do retailers. As the back-to-school shopping season begins, e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook are the must-have item for stores that are betting these devices will boost their bottom lines. Retailers from Best Buy to Target are promoting e-readers heavily as a new crop of digital natives comes of age.

The Levys represent an emergent class of tech consumers that is being closely watched by the industry.

“This is a generation of kids that have learned to communicate, search and purchase on very small devices, like mobile phones,’’ said James McQuivey, Forrester Research media analyst. “This year is a guinea pig year, next year the move will be en masse.’’

The trends are already striking. Forrester Research projects that 15.5 million e-readers will be sold this year, a 50 percent increase over last year. While the firm does not break out sales by age, children are a growing customer base. When Barnes & Noble launched a digital library for children last October, it had 120 picture book titles; today it has 570, including classics such as Curious George and Corduroy. Similarly, publisher HarperCollins reports that young adult e-books have surged 125 percent year over year.

Popular teen fiction, such as “Pretty Little Liars,’’ “I Am Number Four,’’ and “Beastly,’’ will continue to expand, said HarperCollins Children’s Books spokeswoman Sandee Roston, “as more and more devices are given as gifts, purchased by teens, or handed down from parents.’’

This back-to-school season, there are more e-readers to choose from, and thanks to a price war they are getting cheaper. At the Best Buy store in Burlington, the Amazon Kindle 3G was priced at $139.99,about $50 less than seven months ago.

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