As discussions and debates about the virtues and shortcomings of the increasingly popular digital book and e-reader rumble on, it has seemed inevitable that sooner rather than later, someone would write a book about a world in which people no longer know what a book is. The latest offering from the American children’s author and illustrator Lane Smith, It’s a Book (currently featured in the window of Heffers), is the first I’ve seen, and is a lovely, tongue-in-cheek contribution. Monkey sits absorbed in a book, while Donkey asks ‘What do you have there?’, and bombards him with more questions: does it scroll, blog, tweet, text, need a password, or do wifi? Where’s the mouse, and surely it must have to be charged?

‘No heavy message, I’m only in it for the laffs’, writes Smith in his explanation of how he came to write this book.  What I really enjoyed about It’s a Book is its clever simplicity. It is not a judgemental defence of the book as opposed to the computer screen, and it does not sentimentalise the materiality of the book, which one might expect it to do. Monkey’s repeated response to Donkey’s persistent questioning – ‘No. It’s a book’ – leaves enough space for the reader, child or adult, to consider for themselves the many virtues of the object they are holding.