You could definitely take it a step further...
No need to use a manual download at the circulation counter when you have the wireless capabilities. Books would expire automatically after X number of days of the reader not being in proximity of the school for reauthorization (say 90 days). This would keep licensing costs down.
If there were numbered buttons like on the Sony, sidebar graphics could be expanded to full screen by pressing the corresponding number (See Figure 1 -- student would press #1 for a full screen image).
If intended for grammar school though, I think one of two things would need to happen. Either the books are very hardened -- rubberized with a hard cover, or each student gets two eBook readers. One for school and one for home. In either case, the price would have to come down to about $150 each for the schools to really take notice. Not only that, but the infrastructure would need to be in place for distribution and rights management of works. It would have to be idiot-proof from the teachers perspective. Either that, or do what my grammar school did... have the students be the IT people.
