Yesterday I said good-bye to February with a celebration.  Just Books in Old Greenwich, Connecticut held a signing for my new book, "Big George: How a Shy Boy Became President Washington," Harcourt 2009, beautifully and evocatively illustrated by Matt Phelan.

 

In these tough times we all know people aren’t buying anything they don’t have to.  But I was pleased that our local bookstore wanted to honor me, and I wanted to give them any support I could, because they are under new ownership, and it takes plenty of courage to try and make a go of an independent bookstore these days. I knew I might be sitting all day in an empty store.

 

But the turnout was good and we sold books!  It was touching to see how many parents of young children wanted them to have a book about our first president, a book about how America became the world’s first democracy.

 

Among my favorite customers was the little girl of about five who murmured that she, too, was shy, and had even played the part of George Washington’s horse, Nelson, in her school’s recent celebration of Presidents’ Day!

 

All told, a lovely, but tiring day, filled with news and visits from old friends and new.  So when I got home, I kicked off my shoes, put my feet up on my tuffet, and enjoyed a nice cup of pu-erh tea brewed in my tiny xi-xing pot shown above.

 

As I looked at the fragrant brick of dark tea, a gift from a friend in China, I couldn’t help musing of how the world was changed because some unruly colonials dumped all those priceless bricks of China tea into Boston Harbor.