THE FIRST BOOK OF WORDS is not a dictionary. It is a book about English words—the simplest book ever written on this exciting subject. It tells how words are born: the brand-new words invented yesterday and the ancient words that have traveled halfway round the earth to become a part of our living language. It shows the way words change just as the world changes. It tells why we need words as tools, for learning and for doing; the way we use them to let other people know what we think and feel.

THE FIRST BOOK OF WORDS is not a vocabulary-builder. But readers of this book will begin to look at words in a new way that will make them want to collect words as enthusiastically as they collect stones or stamps. They will see that no word, however confusing its spelling, is only a jumble of letters, but that it is instead a meaningful part of our history and our everyday life today. They will learn, too, how to have fun with words and how to be at home with them.

Lászlo Roth's gay and arresting drawings add to the charm of this unusual book.

From the dust jacket