Animal Farm

In her free time, and for her own enjoyment, Ruth (who is 7, let me just remind you) is reading Animal Farm by George Orwell. She is about half-way through now. Yesterday afternoon, she paid a visit to her dad's office (in our bedroom), and they began to discuss the book. Jeff asked her what she thought of the pigs. To which she replied, ""Well, the pigs told everyone that they couldn't sleep between sheets, but then they went in the farmhouse and slept between blankets." Jeff asked her if she thought this was following the rules or not. She answered, "Not really, because they didn't want anyone to sleep in a bed, and they were just making an excuse for why they could sleep in a bed." Then, totally on her own and completely unprompted, she offered up this little jewel: "They remind me of the dictators we studied in history, because they just wanted to make rules for everyone but not follow them themselves."

Now, some of you, like myself, may have read this book in Jr. High or High School and spent weeks discussing it in class and analyzing it for all it was worth and writing brilliant papers all about it and what it meant. And in the end, the point was exactly what Ruth took away from it, without all the hullabaloo. It just made sense to her and she was able to connect it with the other things in her head to make it make sense. I'm biased, but I might just call her a genius. And certainly her retired English teacher grandmother will be thrilled to know that she got that gene.

**You'll find on this blog we are not ashamed to brag on our kids, and this instance is no exception. We are extremely proud of all of our kids and want the whole world to know it.**