GEORGE TOWN: Despite the allure of digital screens, children are still turning pages \u2013 literally.<\/p>\n
At a time when digital devices dominate classrooms and homes, young readers are flocking to book fairs and reaching for physical books, drawn by the tactile joy of flipping pages and soaking in the smell of fresh print.<\/p>\n
From Teluk Intan to Air Itam, children and parents gathered at the Sunshine Central book fair near here showing that the love for real books is far from lost.<\/p>\n
Travelling all the way from Teluk Intan, Perak, to visit the book fair in Air Itam yesterday were 13-year-old Kek Shuen Nee, her parents and younger sister.<\/p>\n
Shuen Nee said she preferred reading physical books because she can hold them and feel the pages.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s different from reading on a screen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The SMJK San Min student said that although she sometimes reads e-books, physical books are easier on the eyes and gives her a better sense of focus.<\/p>\n
Her father Edmund Kek, 46, said he has encouraged his daughters to read from a young age in an effort to instil in them a lifelong habit of reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been bringing them to book fairs for the past 10 years to expose them to a wide range of books and to nurture their interest in reading,\u201d said the businessman.<\/p>\n
He believes that reading helps children expand their imagination, improve language skills and develop critical thinking.<\/p>\n
Form Three student Mohd Arfan Zaquan Abdul Fariz, 15, was seen with his younger bro\u00adther Mohd Aqkid Zaquan Abdul Fariz, 12, at the fair browsing through rows of books for their favourite titles.<\/p>\n
Mohd Arfan said he likes to re-read books that he enjoys.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt always feels better to hold an actual storybook in my hand and this helps me to concentrate better, too,\u201d said the teenager who enjoys fiction and history books.<\/p>\n
Mohd Arfan also said that book fairs give students a chance to explore beyond school textbooks and find stories that inspire them.<\/p>\n
Another visitor to the fair, eight-year-old P. Mevishka Isha said she enjoys reading physical books because she can feel the pages and it gives her inspiration to write her own stories.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like touching the book, flipping the pages… it makes me think of new ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes, after reading a story, I\u2019ll write my own version of it,\u201d she said with a smile, holding a book of fairy tales she had just picked up.<\/p>\n
Her father P. Puvaneswaran, 44, a regional manager of a company, also said that both his daughters preferred to read phy\u00adsi\u00adcal books.<\/p>\n
\u201cReading helps them express themselves better and boost their confidence in both English and Bahasa Malaysia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The book fair\u2019s head of commercial, Jeremy Sew, said with a bigger space and bigger car park at Sunshine Central, this year\u2019s edition focused on attracting fami\u00adlies to the book sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith over one million imported books on sale, we hope that parents can bring their children here,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He said about 70% of the books are children\u2019s books while the rest are fiction, non-fiction and books by local publishers.<\/p>\n
Sew said that about 5,000 people visited the event on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The fair will be held until Aug 10. Admission is free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GEORGE TOWN: Despite the allure of digital screens, children are still turning pages \u2013 literally. At a time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,36695,457,36699,36693,134,36692,36698,36701,36694,36697,36700,36696],"class_list":["post-41698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-book-fairs","tag-books","tag-critical-thinking","tag-digital-screens","tag-entertainment","tag-george-town","tag-imagination","tag-imported-books","tag-physical-books","tag-reading-habits","tag-sunshine-central","tag-tactile-joy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}