Books in colonial America were important and
scarce. Children were given hornbooks
because they were thought to be too careless to handle real books. People lent and borrowed books from each
other because there were practically no libraries. People affixed bookplates inside their books to show ownership or to remind
lenders to return their books.
Many bookplates include the words ex libris which in Latin means “from the
books.” Most colonial boys were expected
to learn Latin in school.
Assignment: Make a set of bookplates including your name,
decorative borders, and pictures. Use
ink, markers, calligraphy pens, colored pencils. Finish before class. Each student should have a colored paper
folded into 8 rectangles to work on. It
may be helpful to have them use the fonts they typed out (pathfinders).
Pathfinders and Navigators could experiment typing their name in different
fonts and copy them for the bookplates.
For fun:
choose a font you like and find out who designed it and when it came
about.
