Long, long ago, before books and writing existed, drawing was the most common activity in the world. Walls, doors (and in some cases, even floors) were covered in drawings. Our story takes place in a small village in the Middle East, called Karbala. It was a well-planned village, with a school system, hospitals and shops. In this tiny country lived a little girl named Taniya. She was a sweet and obedient girl with a sweet smile, and her hair was always tied in a bun. But, she had no friends because of her disability: She couldn’t speak. Her parents took her to all the doctors but no one could find the cure or reason to her inability to speak, because medicine and science wasn’t as advanced as it is now. But under that shy and timid girl, there was an intelligent and curious mind. Taniya wanted to find a way using which she could communicate with others.

She understood everything that was said to her, and she wanted to find a way in which she could communicate as well. One day, during school, Taniya heard her teacher say, “Symbols and drawings are different. Symbols convey a message, drawings don’t.” Taniya thought, “Symbols convey a message. So why can’t I use symbols to communicate?”

When she reached home, she hastily grabbed a stick and ran to the sand pit near her house. “Which drawing did teacher show us today?” she thought as she struggled to remember. She remembered it was a drawing of the Sun. She quickly drew it on the sand. Then she thought, “This is the Sun. How can we draw ‘Sun’ as a symbol?”

She thought long and hard, not realizing she was moving the stick as well. Suddenly, she looked down and saw what she had absent-mindedly drew. It looked like this:

see attached picture.

Taniya smiled, then frowned. “If drawings and symbols are different,” she thought, “We can’t draw symbols then. We can… WRITE them!” She remembered other words and drew symbols for them as well.

And, on that very day, when the sun was setting; creating beautiful colors on the sky, the wind was depositing leaves from one place to another, and the trees were dancing happily, Taniya looked at her ‘writing’ with pride and happiness.

She had invented the first method of writing, using symbols which represented words and letters. She opened her mouth, and miraculously, her vocal cords, her mouth and tongue shaped the wind entering her mouth into a word, the first word Taniya ever spoke, “Karbali.”

No one knew and no one knows how Taniya spoke at that moment. Some said it was pride. Others said it was happiness. All we know is that Taniya had spoken, and at that moment she had also invented the first written language ever, Karbali.

SEVEN YEARS LATER

The streets of Karbala were bustling with people. Running through the crowd, 17-year-old Taniya was struggling to get to the podium in time, while shouting, “Excuse me!”, “Coming through!” and “Pardon me!”

And all the people who saw her either gave her an encouraging smile or said, “We’re all waiting to find out what you cooked up, Taniya!”

As she ran through the crowd, she passed people teaching other people how to write Karbali. After quite a lot of running, Taniya finally reached the podium, which was actually a huge piece of wood with stairs on one side. She caught her breath and took something out of her brown bag. It looked like a bunch of papers with Karbali written on it. She climbed up on the podium and saw that everyone in Karbala had come to see her invention. She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, held the papers she was holding out for everyone to see, and said,

“Hello, people of Karbala. Today, I going to introduce something new. Karbali language is now used everywhere in Karbala to write down anything. These papers,” she pointed to them and held them up higher so everyone could see, “are actually a combination of letters, words and sentences over the same topic. I call it: a

     BOOK.”

The people were surprised and confused. They didn’t know whether to cheer or to clap. Taniya continued, “Books are written by people who I’ve decided to call:

Authors.

“The main purpose of books is to gain knowledge about history or science. Books can make teaching easier for teachers. Books will make Karbala a better place.”

The crowd burst into applause, and Taniya beamed with pride.

Thus, Taniya became the first ever author. As time passed, people started writing fiction books as well. 

This is the story of books, writing and authors.

THE END!