When P J Haarsma wrote his first book, a science fiction novel for preteenagers, he didn’t think just about how to describe Orbis, the planetary system where the story takes place. He also thought about how it should look and feel in a video game. The online game that Haarsma designed not only extends the fictional world of the novel, it also allows readers to play in it. At the same time, Haarsma very calculatedly gave gamers who might not otherwise pick up a book a clear incentive to read: One way that players advance is by answering questions with information from the novels. “You can’t just make a book anymore,” said Haarsma, a former advertising consultant. Pairing a video game with a novel for young readers, he added, “brings the book into their world, as opposed to going the other way around.” Haarsma is not the only one using video games to spark an interest in books. Authors, teachers, librarians and publishers are embracing this fast-paced, image-laden world in the hope that the games can draw children to reading.Spurred by arguments that video games also may teach a kind of digital literacy that is becoming as important as proficiency in print, libraries are hosting gaming tournaments, while schools are exploring how to incorporate video games in the classroom. Publishers are also rushing to get in on the action. Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter series, recently released The Maze of Bones, the first installment in a 10-book mystery series that is tied to a Web-based game. In advance of the publication of Brisingr, the third book in the best-selling Inheritance fantasy series by Christopher Paolini, Random House Children’s Books commissioned an online game. About 51,000 people have signed up since June to play and chat on message boards on the site.But doubtful teachers and literacy experts question how effective it is to use an overwhelmingly visual medium to connect youngsters to the written word. They suggest that while a handful of players might be motivated to pick up a book, many more will skip the text and go straight to the game. Others suggest that video games detract from the experience of being wholly immersed in a book. Some researchers, though, say that even when children don’t read much text, they are picking up skills that can help them thrive in a visually oriented digital world. And some educational experts suggest that video games still stimulate reading in blogs and strategy guides for players. To be sure, some of the experiments pairing electronic games with books will be little more than marketing gimmicks. But publishers and authors suggest that some projects may push creative boundaries, helping to extend storytelling beyond the traditional covers of a book. Some people argue that video games are an emerging medium likely to undergo an evolution. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, in 10 or 20 years, video games are creating fictional universes which are every bit as complex as the world of fiction of Dickens or Dostoevsky,” said Jay Parini, a writer who teaches English at Middlebury College. Gaming advocates suggest that even if video games don’t motivate more traditional reading, they have the potential to teach players how to absorb visual information and think strategically.
