Where do books come from?
Books have had a long and important history in many cultures all over the world!
Before books as you know them were around, people as far back as Ancient Egypt were writing on whatever they could stone, clay, wood, and early forms of paper such as scrolls.
For a long time, books were rare and expensive because there was no printing and every individual book had to be written out by hand! (Can you imagine how long that would take for a big book, like one the size of the dictionary??) But when the printing press was invented in the mid-1400's by Johannes Gutenberg, it suddenly became much easier for books to be made and sold! This helped a lot with things like education, because it was hard for people to learn without books to study from! Plus, once books were easier to make more people were able to have them because they weren't as expensive!
(by Mya Kagan)
Exploration
Scroll it out! Before there were paper books that were bound together the way we do today, many documents were written on scrolls, which were made of a paper-like material in which many sheets were attached to each other end-to-end. Try making your own scroll! Use some tape or glue to attach a few pieces of paper. Draw or write your story or message onto the scroll, and then roll it up! If you want something to roll the scroll around, you can even put a wooden dowel on one end! (Or substitute for it with the empty roll from some paper towels!)