Book: My Autobiography Chapter Sampler

8/20/2019 Book: My Autobiography Chapter Sampler

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BOOK J O H N A G A R D

iustrated by

N E I L P A C K E R


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To Caroline Royds, Alice Horocks, and Beth Aves

for editorial nurturing and design;

to Neil Packer for the visual grooming;

and to Edie Burne, who gave up boxing for books

J. A.

ext copyright © 2014 by John Agard Ilustrations copyright © 2014 by Neil Packer

Copyright acknowledgments apear on p. 137.

Al rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmied,

or store in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping , and

recording, without prior wrien permission from the pulisher.

First U.S. edition 2015

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2014939343

ISBN 978-0-7636-7236-2

15 16 17 18 19 20 BVG 10 9 8 7 6 5 3 2 1

Printed in Beryvile, VA, U.S.A.

is book was typeset in Brioso Pro.

e ilustrations were done in mixed media.

Canlewick Press

99 Dover Street

Somervile, Massachuses 02144

visit us at www.canlewick.com


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Remem ering

WENDY BOASE

who suported the idea of Book in its

infancy two decades ago


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CONTENTS

THE WHODUNIT OF WRITING

SAYING IT WITH CLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

ETTING YOUR FROGS CROSSED . . . . . . . . . . 12

DOWN THE ALPHABET ROAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

TWEAKING THE ABCS

MY ROCK-TO-ROLL DAYS

MY PAPYRUS ADVENTURES

HOW SHEEP ENTERED MY LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

SPREADING THE WORD

WITH FEATHERS

WHEN MY LETTERS SHIMMERED . . . . . . . . . . .48


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A SPINE IS TAKING ITS TIME

FROM RAGS TO PAPER 5

UTENBERG’S MOVABLE TYPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68

THE GOLDEN AGE OF PRINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78

N THE MOVE WITH STEAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

A GARDEN IN A POCKET 7

THE HOUSE OF MEMORY 9

PEN TO THE PUBLIC

A TALE OF FLAMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110

I BOOK E-BOOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

THANK-YOUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

SOURCES 136

COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 137


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OOK and I’l tel youthe story of

my life.

In good time you’l e hearing a out clay

talets, t e invention o t e alp a et,


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arc ment, manuscripts t at lig t up,li raries, an al t at in o stuff. But

my story goes even urt er ac .

Be ore Boo ,

there wasBreath.

y firelight people sang songs and told

stories. ey chanted while dancing

to honor the seasons. And the old ones

assed on the old ways to the young y


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wor o mout . By t e power o memory. Yes, people ept me in t eir ea s an

tol me wit t eir lips.

Writing was not yet orn.


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HE HODUNIT OF RITING

Many peop e

e ieve t at writing egan

more than five thousand years ago withthe Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia,

now modern Iraq.

It might have een invented y a

umerian armer w o just apene toe ooling wit clay on t e an s o

t e river Tigris or t e Eup rates. Wel,

not exactly dooling, ut puing marks

on clay to keep track of his cale andarley. Or a Sumerian woman might

have een decorating her clay pots, and

one thing led to another. Who knows?

It’s also possile t at writing egan a


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ew un re years e ore t en wit t eancient Egyptians, or may e even earlier

wit t e Harapan civilization o t e

Indus Valey, in what is now Pakistan.

Archaeologists have dug up thou-sands of clay talets with writing on

them from al of those ancient places, so

whether it first apeared on Harapan

seals, Egyptian tom s, or Sumerianoery may always remain a mystery.

But wit out writing, w ere woul

Book e?


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AYING T WITH LAY

I i e to t in

o c ay ta ets as my anceors.

es, I’l have you know that fired earthis part of Book’s family tree, ecause

clay talets weren’t just used to keep

usiness records, lists, and accounts.

e Sumerians also use clay talets tostore secrets a out t e stars, as wel as

rayers, ymns, an poems, an w at’s

said to e the oldest story ever wrien

down. And what did they use for a pen?

A reed. is ancient way of writing is

caled cuneiform, which means “wedge-

shaped,” ecause they used a reed stylus


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wit a we ge-s ape tip to press intot e so clay.

Soun s li e ar wor . You try

writing on squishy lumps of clay. en

you’ve got to sun-dry the clay or ake itin a fire, and if it cracks, wel, there goes

your paper. But of course, the Sumerians

weren’t short of clay, ecause they lived

on t e an s o two great rivers.


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As I sit on a s el centuries later,I oen won er w at it woul eel li e

to e a clay talet store in a jar wit a

oem or story inscri ed on me, and then

to e dug up thousands of years later yn archaeologist searching among ruins

in some faraway desert. Yes, I enjoy a it

of daydreaming — don’t we al?

en I loo aroun at my rien s,aper ac s an ar ac s, al o us

u le toget er on t e s elves, an

I say to myself, What’s goen into you,

Book? You pape pages would go a brownand cruncy in the heat of the desert.


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ETTING OUR ROGS ROSSED

e ore writing,

how did people manage

to send messages to one another acrossdistances? Wel, you could use a taking

drum, or even send an o ject or two.

is might sound like a good idea,

ut it coul e ris y. In act, I’l tel you a out a moment in istory w en

eople got t eir rogs crosse . e story

goes that when King Darius of Persia

invaded Scythia, a messenger roughthim a package from the Scythians.

In the package was a frog, a mouse, a

ird, and some arows. Darius took this

to mean that the Scythians were ready


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to suren er t eir lan an retreat li eir s e ore t e Persian arows.

But he had goen the wrong end of

t e stic , or s oul t at e t e wrongen o t e rog? W at t e Scyt ians

were realy saying to Darius was, “Loo ,

udy, we Scythians aren’t a out to give

up our land. So unless you Persians canhide like a frog in the swamps, urow

like a mouse, or fly like a ird, you’d

eer not think a out invading, or our

Scyt ian arows wil get you.”


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Imagine going to al t e troule ocatc ing a rog, a mouse, a ir — an

stil not geing your message across to

the Persians! Surely, there had to e a

eer way of communicating. Wel, for starters, you could send a

icture of a frog. At least then you

wouldn’t have to go hunting for a real

. An once people egan sen ing

ictures, t ey realize t ey coul use

them to represent al sorts of things,

not only o jects or goods, like arley orcale, ut ideas.

If your message meant war, you could

carve an arow or a ear on a clay

talet and send that to your enemies.


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I your message was wis ing someone along li e, you coul carve a sna e, since

t ere was an ol elie t at sna es live

forever ecause they’re always changing

their old skin for a new one.


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A picture o a oot mig t stan or,excuse t e pun, t e i ea o a journey,

muc as a roa si e picture o an a ult

nd child is part of modern traffi c

lanuage, meaning watch out forchildren crossing.

Whether carved on clay, ark, ivory,

or one, the arival of picture writing,or pictographs, was a ig step toward

the miracle of the alpha et and yours

truly, Book.


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Book

John Agard

illustrated by Neil Packer

www.candlewick.com
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book-john-agard/1121069208?ean=9780763672362http://www.amazon.com/Book-John-Agard/dp/0744544785/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429710746&sr=8-1&keywords=book+agardhttp://www.indiebound.org/book/9780763672362

Book: My Autobiography Chapter Sampler

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