You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations, and Codes by Ross, Val

You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations, and Codes (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780887767326)

Author: Val Ross
Product Type: Books
Format: Hardcover
$19.95
$19.95
$19.95
Subtotal: $19.95
You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations, and Codes by Ross, Val

You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations, and Codes

$19.95
You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations, and Codes by Ross, Val

You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations, and Codes

$19.95
Format: Hardcover
Description
Description
x
Wherever people can read, there are stories about the magic, mystery, and power of what they read. Val Ross presents a history of reading that is, in fact, the story of the monumental, on-going struggle to read. From Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon the Great, the world's oldest signed author to Empress Shotoku of Japan who in 764 ordered the printing of one million Buddhist prayers; from the story of Hulagu, Ghengis Khan's nasty brother who destroyed the library of Baghdad to Bowdler and the censorship of Shakespeare, there have been barriers to reading ranging from the physical to the economical, social, and political.

Written for children ages ten and up, You Can't Read This explores the development of alphabets, the decoding of ancient languages, and censorship in Ancient Rome and modern America. It's about secret writing, trashed libraries, writers on the run, writers in hiding, books that are thought to have magical powers and mistranslations that started wars. It's about people: from the American slave Frederick Douglass to girls in Afghanistan in the year 2001 who defied laws that prevented them from learning to read.

What do all these stories have in common?

They're all about how texts contain power - and how people everywhere throughout history have devoted their wills and their brains to reading and unleashing the power of the word.

With lavish illustrations and an index, this is history at its finest.

Author: Val Ross
ISBN-10: 088776732X
ISBN-13: 9780887767326
Publisher: Tundra Books (NY)
Language: English
Published: 04/04/2006
Pages: 152
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.93lbs
Size: 9.22h x 7.38w x 0.61d

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 7.9
Point Value: 6
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 111912 / You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations & Codes


Review Citation(s):
Quill & Quire 05/01/2006 pg. 57
Booklist 05/15/2006 pg. 41
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2006 pg. 372 - Recommended, Satisfactory
By Val Ross
By Val Ross
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Val Ross was a renowned journalist and won a National Newspaper Award. She was highly respected throughout the publishing industry for her coverage of books and the people who create them. She was an arts reporter at The Globe and Mail and her first book, The Road to There: Mapmakers and Their Stories was nominated for many awards and won the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's non-fiction. Val Ross passed away in 2008.

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