By Susan Jacoby, Librarian

“Do your kids read books?”

Taking a coffee break between workshops at a national conference about a year ago, I had struck up a conversation with a woman sitting near me who, it turned out, was also a school librarian.  We’d spent a pleasant few minutes happily talking all kinds of esoteric “library stuff” that almost no one else is interested in when, out of the blue, she put this question to me.

“Do your kids read books?”

At first I was startled. Then confused.