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In service course 09-10

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Look, people are reading books in a library.Books are the greatest of all discoveries and inventions.Everything we know may be found in books.

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Do you know,that the first books were not written on paper?

  • Long before 3000 B.C. the Sumerians wrote on clay tablets.

Sumerians were people living in the southern region of Babylonia ,in the present-day Iraq.

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In 1300 B.C. the people of China began to make books from bamboo strips bound together with cords.

CHINA

Bamboo strips

The Chinese invented printing in the ninth century.

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The ancient Egyptians wrote on scrolls made from papyrus ,which grew by the river Nile.

  • The modern paper was invented in China around AD 150,made by pulping flax fibres.

papyrus

China

River Nile

flax

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Two thousand years ago in India, birch bark and palm leaves were used for pages.

  • A sharp iron spike was used for writing on palm leaves.The book was held together by a string through holes.

Birch bark (bhojapatra)

Palm leaf(talapatra)

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activity

  • Reading books is a very good habit. It gives pleasure as well as knowledge.Books are our best friends.

So, visit the Calcutta Book Fair, which is held every year in January & buy lots of books of your choice . Read them & write about the things you like in them.