The first books were either written by slaves or paid professionals.  The books that we use today did not come along until the second century.

     The earliest were done on pieces of parchment.  They were written by Christian writers.  It was about 2 or 3 centuries later that it came popular in Ireland.  The early books that were bound together were called a codex.  They were usually only for religious matters.  Well, there was no punctuation or spaces in their books.  The first paperback books were made in 1841.  Those books, the purchaser had to agree to throw the books away after they had read them.

     Over the years people have made some strange books.  A Japanese Emperor wrote a book in his own blood.  This man, with his own blood, wrote a book that had 135 pages and 1215 lines and 10,5000 words.  Another weird author wrote a book with 500 pages with nothing on them.  WEIRD, HUH!  Now, every year, they make about 40,000 books, just in the United States.

      Dictionaries can be explained as an alphabetical arranged list - a long list - of thousands of words and their definitionns.  Different kinds of dictionaries can be found in American libraries today.  They are the English, supplementary (no idea what that is; look it up in a dictionary - ha! ha!)  foreign, and subject dictionaries.  Everyone should have at lease one of those different kind!

    The first English dictionaries were supposed to be used to explain difficult and foreigh words.  Easy words were not added because people thought everyone knew them right off the tip of their tongue - so to speak.  The first of the English dictionaries was called "A Table Alphabetical' by Robert Cawdren.  It was made in 1604 which was more than 400 years ago!

    As dictionaries continued to be made, all the easy words were put in with the hard ones.  But attempts were still not made to use all English words in dictionaries.  A man named Nathan Bailey, who had given the people "A Universal Etymological English Dictionary" in 1722, made it crystal clear that he had included the easy words for good standing.  When a young man, Dr. Samuel Johnson, was asked to make an English dictionary, he accepted, pleased that he would be able to serve as a literary dictator for choosing the right words.  He defined words much better than past dictionaries had, and even defined easy words.  He named his dictionary 'Dictionary, with a Grammar and History of the English Language.'  It came out in 1755 and was a success!