We don't mean to say people are useless, but Ernest Hemingway got it spot on when he said: "There is no friend as loyal as a book." With a good story, you’ll always be in good company, and whether accessed via a physical tome or nifty device, anything that encourages a love for reading has got to be a good thing.

With enthusiasm for literature in mind, enter the Kindle Kids Edition – the latest e-reader from Amazon. With a built-in dictionary, reading achievement badges, story recommendations and more, here’s why we think it’s a wise-buy for your child’s bookcase.

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Design

With its tactile and compact pink or blue cover, the Kindle Kids Edition could easily be mistaken for a stylish Moleskine notepad. With its child-friendly case, it is a light 288g and can easily be slipped into a small rucksack. Open the sturdy magnetic case and the screen wakes up - close it again and it will instantly turn off, bookmarking the page you left it at – a feature that works particularly well at bedtime when tired eyes get the better of you.

Its casing is designed to protect the Kindle screen from scratches, knocks and marks. Just like Fire Kids Edition Tablets, if children accidentally break the Kindle Kids Edition e-reader it can be returned and replaced for free under its two-year guarantee.

Features

With a 167ppi e-ink display, Wi-Fi, 8GB storage, a built-in adjustable front light and a 6-inch touch display, the Kids Edition is, well, a 10th generation Kindle. It has however, been given enticing kid-friendly features housed in a candy-coloured case to children up to the age of 12. For a start, included in the price is one-year of Fire for Kids Unlimited, for example, which gives access to a vast library of popular chapter books.

While tablets such as the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition also include a year’s access to Kids Unlimited to access books and audiobooks, the great thing about the Kindle Kids Edition is that it’s focused solely on reading – unlike a tablet that features apps, videos and games and allows kids to freely browse online (parental control dependant), the Kindle Kids Edition sticks to the task in hand. ‘It’s not screen time, it’s reading time’, says Amazon.

On board you’ll find useful tools to motivate kids to read more and help them expand their vocabulary. If you click on the Awards icon, for example, kids can reach reading goals and parents can in turn monitor their child’s progress remotely via the Parents Dashboard. For every achievement they’ll get a virtual sticker - if your child reads 30 minutes a day, for example, they will get a Book Worm badge, while if they go up to 40 minutes they’ll get a High-Flyer badge. If they reach their daily reading goal of seven days in a row, they’ll get a Super Bookworm stamp.

Another useful tool is the Dictionary feature that allows kids to highlight words while they’re reading and access an explanation instantly. The words they look up are then added to the Vocabulary builder section and easily accessed in flashcard form.

We found Word Wise a particularly insightful feature – once turned on, kids are given short and simple definition above difficult words. It should be noted that it took a while for Word Wise files to download for us, but once we did they automatically appeared as we read. While reading Harry Potter, for example, the word ‘dramatic’ was highlighted with ‘sudden and extreme’, while the word ‘masked’ was highlighted as ‘to keep from being broken’.

Performance

Set up was straightforward and fast. Simply click and follow the prompts. Start by choosing your language and then connect to Wi-Fi. Once you’re logged on you can register the device and create a child profile and access the subscription for Kids Unlimited. Navigation, however, wasn’t as speedy as we would like – and you’ll need a strong Wi-Fi connected to download books quickly.

Within the child’s profile, the device instantly displayed suggestions in rows for books we might like, characters and themes, new books, popular and adventure books. The search button made it easy to see popular books such as the Harry Potter series and The Princess Diaries from Kids Unlimited. But you won’t find all the obvious favourites - if you’re looking for Roald Dahl classics or the latest from David Walliams you’ll have to pay more. To download these you’ll have to log onto the Parent Dashboard and purchase additional content and add it to the child’s profile.

While the novels we downloaded were easy to read and made for smooth page turning, during book searches the screen froze a few times, and we found ourselves having to reboot to start afresh, which was frustrating.

You need to remember the Parental Controls pin, so you can switch from adult to child’s profile and make adjustments. It also took us a little while to work out how to exit the chapter books and journey back to the home screen, but once discovered a simple touch top left took us there.

With a 16-level greyscale, screen text is presented clearly and is easy to read, but we found some of the book cover artwork blurry. We think that perhaps younger kids may not find the black and white screen as exciting as the colourful displays they may be used to on a tablet. The screen is glare-free, however, so it is easy on the eyes and can also be viewed in sunlight.

Verdict

We’re not suggesting that an e-reader can or should replace the magic of reading an actual paper book, but the Kindle Kids Edition does a great job of encouraging older kids to read more. Its compact, ergonomic design provides useful tools to help children get a better understanding of the text they’re reading and its easily portable. Children can slip the e-reader into their rucksack without being weighed down and access hundreds of books wherever they’re stuck indoors on a rainy day or chilling in the sunshine.

You do however, have to have a bit of patience to use the touchscreen and we found the response time sluggish in places. As a result, we’d say this device is best suited to kids above the age of eight, who have a little more experience navigating touchscreen displays. And adults may like to use it themselves to read chapter books to their young children when they’re out and about.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK