Write Around the World : The Story of How and Why We Learnt to Write

In this lively history of writing, six goofy birds - a penguin, two toucans, an owl and two chickens - team up to tour the world of writing: how it developed, where alphabets came from, and the origins of international languages such as Latin, Esperanto and Morse Code.

They begin their time-travelling journey in 4000 BCE with the Sumerians, who invented pictograms out of the necessity to keep trading records.

One of the toucans flies on a kite tail to China to learn about characters, the penguin walks like an Egyptian in full headdress across the desert sands to uncover hieroglyphs, and then there's a mad rush of characters who pass the idea of an alphabet around Europe and the Near East.

Illustrated in full colour, "Write Around the World" includes light-hearted and informative sections on the world's alphabets, languages, handwriting, calligraphy, typefaces and punctuation, icons, and secret codes as well as a glossary of important words.