Can Japanese "cellphone novels"
revive U.S. book reading?

American kids seem to be reading fewer printed books in favor of electronic media such as iPods, video games and cellphones. Many people think the decline of print literacy is a bad thing.

No one seems to have an answer on how to reverse the trend. But, a new fad coming from kids in Japan might help.

In recent years, American kids have adopted a lot of new "youth culture" ideas from the Far East, especially Japan. There's been the paper arts like origami and stylish comic books called manga.

The next trend may be "two thumb" novels.

Japanese kids, especially girls, have been writing popular novels on their cellphones, using two thumbs as with text messaging. Thousands of such novels have been posted on the mobile Internet. The novels can be downloaded for free.

This sort of novel is usually a simple, romantic story written in short, choppy sentences like text messages. Until recently, they have been pretty much discounted as not being "real literature."

That is, until book publishers in Japan took note and turned the electronic novels into printed books. Lots of people started paying for the print versions although they could have downloaded them for free.

And they've bought LOTS of the printed novels.

Last year, five of the 10 best-selling printed novels in Japan started as cellphone novels. And, three of the first five were written by first-time novelists...on their cellphones.

Of course, not everyone in Japan was enthusiastic about this trend.

A famous Japanese literary journal, Bungaku-kai, asked, "Will cellphone novels kill the author?" The journal thought the quickie novels would hasten the decline of Japanese literature.

Earlier this year, the Sunday New York Times used front-page space to tell this interesting tale of the revival of print-book reading.

The article focused on a 21-year-old girl, using only her first name, Rin. Her first novel, entitled "If You," is a tragic love story. It was written in a 6-month period as Rin was commuting to her part-time job.

She said, "My mother didn't even know that I was writing a novel. She didn't believe it until it came out and appeared in book stores."

The book sold 400,000 printed copies.

Unlike some literary critics, columnist Mike Elgan of Computer World had a different view.

His article was published under the headline: "People don't read anymore; Are mobile phones our last hope for literacy?"

Early in his article, he said, "Technology in general has caused our Western culture to evolve into one in which long-form books can't compete for our attention aganst the onslaught of Internet celebrity gossip, YouTube videos and iPod music."

But, he said that trend of printed words to electronics has been reversed in Japan with cellphone novels moving into printed paper form.

Columnist Elgan noted that young people seem to prefer media that is "created by peers or artists or writers they perceived as peers."

The website, Tech Crunch, also provided coverage of the book-publishing phenomenon. It mentioned an article late last year from the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald.

The paper noted that one of the Japanese cellphone novel, entitled "Korzor (Love Sky)" has sold 1.2 million copies.

Japanese book publishers note that many of the novels by kid authors were their first efforts. And, many of the novelists also said they'd never read a printed book.

Another interesting book-fact associated with Japan is that country is credited with publishing the first novel....over 1,000 years ago. The book was titled, "The Tale of Genji."

The rebirth of novel writing--and reading--is happening among young people in Japan. It was only a few years ago that Japanese adults were deploring the type of things the kids were reading.

That reading was mostly "manga," or comic books.

For Americans, the question is whether the "cellphone novel" will become a fad in this country. And whether this might lead to an upurge of book reading if these are turned into printed pages.

Another unique development in this field is the introduction by the internet book-seller Amazon of an electronic device that creates a book-like format for digital material displayed on cellphone screens.

The Amazon Kindle

Named the the Kindle, the electronic device looks like a cellphone. But, it has the ability to reproduce digital messages in formats and type-faces that looks like a book page.

Using an "E Ink" technology, the reproduced page even can be given a shaded background that looks like a fancy printed page.

Of course, the image size is the size of the minature screen. But, this small size seems to appeal to some people. They like the device's light weight and mobility and get used to the small viewing space.

In a reader response to the Elgan column in Computer World, the person said, "I became just as engrossed in a book on my phone as any print book I've read."

It will be interesting to see if American kids pick up on the Japanese "cellphone novel" fad. Also, it will be interesting to see if American kids want to write the novels or just read them.