#MicroblogMondays: the source

So I bought Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I bought it because after waiting months for it on hold at the library I checked it out and realized it is a tome. It is a history and reference book and much to dense to read in the three-week checkout period. And also the type of book I can see myself re-reading snippets of here and there for many years.

Here I diverge a bit. Stick with me.

When I was pregnant with Simon I bought only a handful of things for him. One thing was the complete set of Little House on the Prairie. My books were loved and lost over the years, but much of my childhood was spent playing pioneers in our house and around the farm. This book was just something I needed to own.

My grandma was a first grade teacher for around 40 years. When I was in elementary school, she taught me this poem. Twenty froggies went to school. Down beside a rushy pool… She taught me lots of stories and poems but for whatever reason this one really stuck with me. So much so that in college I illustrated it for a children’s literature class. At the time I was asked who wrote it, and I had no idea. We had the Internet and I did my best, to no avail. The Internet in the early 2000s was NOT the Internet of today – or even five years ago. I’ve searched on and off over the years for the source of this poem. Not recently.

So back to the book. I was reading over the weekend and there at the bottom of page 71 are THE WORDS TO THIS POEM! And an annotation number with the source of the anthology it was printed in. What are the chances?!?! So I’ve learned that the Internet doesn’t know everything* and sometimes you just need to read a book.

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Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*I just did an Internet search and the poem is now on the Internet including a YouTube video where it was set to music.

**Affiliate link in this post.