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‘5 out of 5 stars ’ Volkskrant newspaper
‘A highly original book about the emergence of our alphabet in a tight and inventive design ’ / Trouw newspaper
‘A big ten ’ / The Happy Reader
‘The origin of letters - what a good idea for a children’s book! ’ / NRC newspaper
Volkskrant A is not at all for ‘apple’, but for ‘ox’. Most gymnasians know that. But what about the other eighteen letters that form the basis of our alphabet through Greek and Latin? The D is from ‘door’. The E of ‘Hey, you there!’, The L is a rope to tie the donkey to a post and the M is for ‘water’. Just look, then you’ll see it. To immediately remove the impression that A is for Ox, from the writer Bette Westera and the graphic agency Autobahn, only exists for prospective scientists: that is not the case. The Autobahn professional lettermakers found an ingenious way to shape the letter evolution from Proto-Sinaitic to Greek and Latin. By dividing each letter into two parts, the one orange and the other colored blue, the development through thousands of years of writing history can easily be traced back. Once you have seen the little arms of the person who calls ‘Hey you there’, you will always recognize them in the E. And the H is of course a ‘fence’, what could it be otherwise? Westera tells a micro-story of one sentence accompanying each letter. About caravans and deserts, rivers that bring fertile silt, oxen that help to plough the tough clay, pins that help keep a tent upright. Thus each letter represents a case that was of vital importance in ancient times. There is no big difference, says Westera, between the origin of letters and the pictures people use today to express what they find important during the app. The story of our alphabet has been told and shown more often. But rarely as inspiring as here. Pjotr van Lenteren 24 August 2018, 15:00
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