Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Places a Nintendo DS Can Take You

My daughter has 100 Classic Books for her Nintendo DS. She loaded it up yesterday and started looking through the titles which range from Dickens to Shakesspeare, from the Bronte sisters to Jane Austen. There are also quite a few childrens book; Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, Black Beauty...I originally got the "game" not because she'd had any interest in it but just because I thought it couldn't hurt to have that as a choice amidst all the Petz and Mario games.

So tonight I asked her to grab her book and head into our room (her brother was going to sleep in the room they share) for quiet time. She said no and instead grabbed the DS.

"Catherine! That's not a book."

"Yes it is. I'm reading Black Beauty on it. I already finished the first chapter. It's about a horse, you know!"

I know. I tried to read the book at her age and found it dreadfully boring. But her eyes lit up when she told me she was reading it so she's obviously getting something I didn't.

How cool is that though? Not only is her DS a reader but it's also how she's being introduced to some classic literature. There's a story for those who turn up their noses at video games systems.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

My first thought was, "How can she stand to read on that little screen?" Then I remembered that I'm currently watching 24 episodes (1 hour each) of an astronomy lecture on my iPod Nano. Keep reading those classics, Catherine.

Luke Holzmann said...

That's some good use of technology there [smile]. Very cool.

...and from what I hear, the Kindle2 is supposed to be pretty nice too.

~Luke

Dawn said...

I've looked into the Kindle a bit but we already have the DS and with a $50 kit (had to order from Hong Kong as noone sells it here. Nintendo has concerns about downloading games) and a $20 micro SD card we can now actually load ANY ebook or PDF document onto her DS and read as well as listen to audio or watch video. I'm thinking it would be great to load some Gugenheim Porject stuff on for long car rides!

Obi - The text is a little bigger then on the page and the light makes it easier to read I find. The number of words on a page is pretty low though so there's lots of virtual page turning with the stylus but it seems to work well for my daughter.

Molytail said...

woah woah woah back the horse up. How's this work - you need the kit thinger? Cindy has a ds (as do Blair and I, as it happens LOL) and I'd LOVE to be able to load books on there like that! She'd think it was wild - reading Black Beauty (which she does like) on her DS...heh, I know she'd think it very cool.

'splain more plz. :-)

Dawn said...

This is exactly what we bought and the company we bought it from...http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.14165

You also need a Micro SD card.

It basically allows you to load stuff from your computer onto your DS. I can convert movies or shows to a format that plays on her DS, load Mp3s on so it's becomes an MP3 player and read .txt, .doc and pdf files. You could also download homebrew games ( games made by DS fans) or illeagal roms (basically DS games).

What it really does is allow the user to control the content and expand the potential uses of the DS. I love it!

Dawn said...

Molytail, send me an email please. I can't find your address!

Molytail said...

Thanks, I'll check it out (micro sd cards I understand - have one in my phone) ...it sounds pretty wild!

Email coming in five..