From the start Digital created an existential crisis for many book lovers. What was a book, if not paper and ink bound together? Before e-books became common, I imagined a new kind of digital book that didn’t try to replicate paper and created Books Unbound, an animation to show what such a book might be like. January 2006 Horn Book Magazine debuted Books Unbound on their website and published my first article advocating a new kind of digital literature, “Lift-Off: When Books Leave the Page.” Leonard Marcus included Books Unbound to “represent one future of picture books” in an exhibition of children’s book art which traveled across the country from 2007-2009. I’ve spoken, written, and been interviewed about these “brave new books.” Unfortunately, the technology needed to create them — Flash — has been discontinued but I still believe in the expanding nature and possibilities for books. Here is more of that continuing conversation, along with the animation Books Unbound. We still don’t see the kind of picture book it imagines.
