Nintendo’s early 2010 lineup contains 100 Classic Books, an interesting application that turns your DS into an e-reader with 100 books for only $19.99. It could be a boon for students, or people who just enjoy classic literature, when it debuts on June 14, 2010. Finally!

See, 100 Classic Books has already been released pretty much everywhere. It was released in Japan as DS Bungaku Zenshuu way back on October 18, 2007. Europeans saw it on December 26, 2008 as 100 Classic Book Collection. Even Australia already has the program, it was released there as 100 Classic Book Collection as well on January 22, 2009. Kind of makes you wonder what took Nintendo so long in releasing it in North America!

Nintendo hasn’t announced what books will be included in the collection. The press release mentions books and plays from Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain and Jules Verne, and Destructoid states that Dracula by Bram Stoker was mentioned at the Nintendo press conference when the program was announced…

The DS is definitely not hurting for games. However, there aren’t as many titles published by Nintendo as you would expect. The games Nintendo does publish in North America tend to be part of popular franchises, and the company has been accused in the past of favoring established series over new properties.

Things are starting to gradually shift. Nintendo took a chance and released Rhythm Heaven in North America. The Legendary Starfy, the fifth game in the series, is going to mark the series’ debut outside of Japan. Perhaps this is a good sign that Nintendo is going to be more accepting of new properties in the future.

Gamertell’s taking a look back today at some of the Nintendo published DS titles that have been passed over until now. A few had tentative US release dates that never happened, and whispered rumors have spread about the possible release of others. One thing’s for sure, all of the following games would be welcome additions to the North American game library…

With the recent success and nearly universal acceptance of Personal Trainer: Cooking, a localization of Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi, this could be a great opportunity for Nintendo and other companies to take a chance and and localize some of the non-games that are quite prevalent in Japan.

The thing is, there are quite a wide selection of these games available in Japan. So many, that it’d be difficult to start sorting out and seeing which ones would be best to bring to the US. So for Important Importables today, we’re going to look at some of the programs that I’d feel would be a boon to the US DS catalog. Some are fun, some are useful and some will do a good job at actually teaching you something.

Of course, you could always get these games direct from Japan. If you’re not fluent though, you’ll have trouble making good use of them…

Literacy is easily one of the things parents worry about most. They wonder if their children are learning the fundimentals at school, if they are keeping up with their peers and, perhaps most importantly, if they’re learning to enjoy reading, and aren’t just doing it because they’re forced to. Scholastic has created The 39 Clues, a book series that combines books with an online game. Kids are forced to read the books in order make progress in the video game. In the UK, Nintendo and Genius Sonority Inc. have released 100 Classic Book Collection, a budget-priced DS application that contains 100 legendary novels and plays from authors like Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and Mark Twain.

While both of these steps are interesting methods and approaches to provide a new way to look at reading material (especially 100 Classic Book Collection, which hopefully will come to the US), its unnecessary. If parents pick the right games for their children, they’ll find the kids are alreadying substantial amounts of text, without even realizing it.

For example, a typical RPG like Pokemon, Final Fantasy or even Legend of Zelda or Animal Crossing require an extensive amount of reading to progress and understand the story…