Apple is going to sell millions and millions of iPads. Don't let anybody tell you different:

Penguin's iPad Demonstration Asks: Are Kids Destined to Grow Up With Tablets?

In all our excitement over the iPad's possibilities for text, multimedia, and gaming, there's been hardly any consideration of the lucrative children's market. But the iPad is perfect for kids in a lot of ways--its larger screen is much easier for kids to manipulate than an iPhone or other smartphone, and the full-color screen and fast processor allow for bright, colorful apps with motion, which ebook readers like the Kindle can't handle. The iPad can act as a picture book, coloring book, audiobook, TV, educational game player, and visual toy--and Penguin's not going to let that potential pass them by.
Penguin's demonstration shows the company is dedicated to exploring this category; it opens the video with children's apps, and then spends more than a third of the video showing them. The children's apps are the most eye-catching part of the demonstration...

Source: FastCompany

...quite clearly, this will morph into something like the device in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer...