Apr 03 2009
Book Review - “Ox, House, Stick: The History of Our Alphabet” by Don Robb
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Note: The following is part of my intermittent Fun Friday series where I write reviews of children’s books.
I love children’s books because they take incredibly complicated subjects and distill them down into bite size pieces that you can understand and learn from without having to have a Masters degree in the subject.
Ox, House, Stick: The History of our Alphabet by Don Robb is just such a children’s book. It is about how our alphabet came into being, something I was discussing with someone just the other day. Why, I wondered, is our alphabet in the order it is in? Why doesn’t our alphabet read as A, C, Y, W, F, Z…
You get the picture.
According to Ox, House, Stick page 19:
No one knows why the letters of the alphabet appear in the order they do. They’ve kept pretty much the same order since Phoenician times.
Well, at least I’m not the only one who doesn’t know the answer to that question. 
I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it took a fairly complicated subject (the history of written language) and broke it down into understandable and interesting chunks. I enjoyed looking at all of the colorful and well-drawn illustrations scattered throughout the book too.
The picture below is actually the back cover for the book, and shows the first two letters of the alphabet (A and B) in a variety of languages: Hebrew, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian. It’s interesting to see the similarities and differences between the alphabets.
Does it make me a real geek that I think lists like that are interesting?
Don’t answer that.
This would be a great book for a teacher in a classroom (geared for ages 8 - 12), a homeschooling mom, or just someone like me who loves to learn about a variety of subjects without having to invest months or years of my time to learning every nook and cranny.
I give Ox, House, Stick: The History of Our Alphabet 4.75 out of 5 stars.
Havs
I know enough of the teachery sort who could really appreciate this. Thanks for the review!
The history of the alphabet, that actually sounds pretty interesting.
Stephanie >> “Teachery sort.” I love it!!! The second best thing to me making up a new word is to have someone else make up a new word.
Chris >> I have to say I learned a lot from it. I read some other reviews on it from people who study the history of language as a living, and apparently this book is very accurate. So bonus points for being both accurate, interesting, and well illustrated!
Jeane >> I have never read the Rudyard Kipling story. That sounds interesting to me.
I have honestly never tried to invent an alphabet. I think it would be very hard to do.
Callista >> Check it out - you won’t be disappointed, promise. And yes, I am on Twitter, although I’ll admit to it and say that I have set up Twitter to tweet my posts automatically (all of my posts from here) and that I do not use it to talk about daily stuff. I just don’t have the time. If you want an update when I post though, you can follow me here.
Sariah >> Of COURSE you think my reviews are the best. It’s some sort of sister law, right? Thou Shalt Love Your Sister’s Book Reviews. Isn’t that in the Ten Commandments somewhere?
Havs