

Do not buy this product for your children or grandchildren. Getting a Kindle Kids was a huge mistake. Plus, as a parent, I was excited to give him an electronic device that doesn’t have Minecraft, YouTube, and other time-wasting frivolities. Harris has recently started to enjoy reading, and I thought he’d appreciate a Kindle of his own rather than having to borrow his mother’s iPad. That’s why I thought a Kindle Kids ebook reader would make a great gift for my oldest son’s ninth birthday. In fact, it has gotten better with age: PDF support has improved greatly, there’s the great “page flip” feature (see “ Amazon Introduces Page Flip for Kindle,” 28 June 2016), and Amazon is even rolling out EPUB support. It’s longer-lived than many electronics (I’m still using one I bought when I started at TidBITS in 2013), the battery lasts forever, and I can sideload whatever ebooks I want over email or USB.

