Fiction

Daniel had to write a report on George Washington this week. Actually it wasn't really a report. The teacher gave them a list of words or phrases, such as "War Hero," "Freedom," "Delaware River," "American Flag," and asked them to write a few sentences about each. One of the phrases was "Cherry Tree." Now, I'm sure that most adult citizens of this country know that the story about George Washington and the cherry tree was fabricated. The question in my mind was whether Daniel's teacher had taught it to her class as fact or fiction.

"What do you know about George Washington and the cherry tree?" I asked Daniel.

"He cut down the tree and when his father asked him who did it, he said he did. He said he couldn't tell a lie."

Hmmm. Where to begin?

"Actually, Dans, that never really happened. The story was invented by a man named Mason Weems who was writing a book for children. He wanted to show that George Washington was an honest person even when he was a boy, so he made up that story about the cherry tree."

(Kind of ironic, I was thinking, that this story that supposedly highlights Washington's truthfulness is itself a lie.)

"Well, what should I write?"

"Write the story the way you told me, but at the end you can mention it isn't true."

My aunt Rita came over to stay with Stephen and Matthew so that I could take a few hours off by myself. I decided to go out to the Borders store in Pennsylvania. I was looking for a few books that I had been unable to find at the Borders in Princeton.

I browsed among the new releases and jotted down a few titles to look up in at the university library: Two Moons by Thomas Mallon, The Vision of Emma Blau by Ursula Hegi, The Unburied by Charles Palliser. By making extensive use of the library I can usually manage to avoid buying books for myself; but I still can't resist the children's section. For Daniel I picked up Hill of Fire, a level 3 reader about a volcano in Mexico, and Captain Underpants, the first of a series about an unusual superhero. It comes highly recommend by some of the other mothers on my bookmoms list.

For the twins, I bought a book I remember fondly from my childhood, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, an Easter bunny story and feminist fable written over sixty years ago. I'm looking forward to reading it to them. I also bought them a set of Bob books, which are very easy books for beginning readers. They are doing so well with their reading lessons, I thought they would enjoy reading "real books."

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