Ever can teach you to write numbers in cuneiform, the first known writing system in the world.

Writing began in ancient Mesopotamia, and Ever takes place in a fantasy version of that time and place. Cuneiform appears in the chapter headings, so you can copy the numbers up to sixty-nine, since there is no Chapter 70.

The Mesopotamians were marvelous mathematicians. Our sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour originated with them. They were good plumbers too. Their sewage systems surpassed anything in medieval Europe thousands of years later. But medicine was not so good, which plays into the plot of Ever.

I had fun researching long-ago food, clothing, religion—learning enough to picture how it might have felt to walk down a baked-mud street, enter a house made of baked mud, proceed through the reception room into the cool interior courtyard where household activities may have taken place. Oh, look! Kezi's mother is weaving. And here comes Kezi to weave at her side. What can happen next?