THE STORY OF WRITING: FROM CAVE ART TO COMPUTER.
By William Cahn'34 and Rhoda Cahn. Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y. Harvey House, 1962. 128 pp.$3.50.
A common pitfall in presenting a scholarly subject for young readers is the tendency to place the information in a childish form of reference; the result is a style too juvenile for the teenager and a subject content too mature for the younger child. Except for the opening chapter, Mr. and Mrs. Cahn have deftly avoided this pitfall, and their book on the history and development of graphic communication is a shining example of what can be done to make nonfiction interesting and exciting for the young reader.
The Story of Writing, a volume in "The Story of Science Series," begins with a description of prehistoric cave drawings and ancient programs, relating them to the symbols and signs familiar to the 20th century child. It covers the development of the various alphabets from the early Phoenician and Greek to those in use today.
The use of numerals begins with the notch on a stick and culminates with the electronic computer. The many writing surfaces in use through the centuries are explained, beginning with dried palm leaves and stone, continuing through the making of papyrus, the use of wax, the perfection of parchment and vellum, and culminating in the development of paper, from that made by the Chinese in 1 A.D. to the machine-made paper of today. This history of the printing press is traced from the use of wooden blocks to movable type, and there is an excellent section on the famous early type faces.
Throughout the book, there is an empha- sis on how closely writing as a means of communication is tied in with the birth and growth of ancient and modern civilization. To do this, a considerable amount of historical data concerning peoples, countries, customs, and cultures has been woven into the story of written communication.
Explanations of unfamiliar subject matter are made by relating a situation or article to one with which a modern child would be acquainted. The proper pronunciation of words new to a child is stressed throughout the book, with the phonetic spelling in brackets incorporated in the text and given again in the index. The illustrations by Anne Lewis are imaginative and are placed in juxtaposition with the part of the text being explained, an important factor in a book for children.
As a final fillip for the teenage child or interested parent, there is a bibliography covering both juvenile and adult books in the fields of archeology and anthropology, history and linguistics, art, communication and modern technology, all subjects touched on in The Story of Writing.
William and Rhoda Cahn have produced a first-rate, readable book of non-fiction for children. I should like to suggest that they write the same type of book on transportation and its relationship to the growth of civilization.
