Opinion: First Lady adds a new title

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When Laura Bush was a little girl, she used to set her dolls up in rows and teach them like a class. She did, in fact, go on to become an inner-city schoolteacher and a librarian. Colleagues and former students recall she always had a book to suggest they read each time they saw her.

Despite many distractions--or perhaps because of many distractions--her love of books never faded, and even during her husband’s hectic political campaigns, she would consume two or three new books a week.

Now, she gets to write one. And her coauthor is daughter, Jenna, a 25-year-old public charter school teacher in Washington.

According to USA Today, the pair have signed with HarperCollins to write a children’s book, as yet untitled, about a mischievous second-grade boy who professes to dislike books. It will be illustrated by Denise Brunkus, whose drawings appeared in the Junie B. Jones series. ‘It’s loosely based on students we both had in our classrooms,’ says Mrs. Bush.

It’ll be published next spring, with proceeds going to national teaching programs Teach for America and the New Teacher Project.

Writing such a book is a real challenge, the first lady says, because ‘in a picture book there are so few words, so each word has to be perfect.’

Jenna Bush has already written a nonfiction book aimed at teenagers, ‘Ana’s Story.’ It’s about a 19-year-old single mother living in Panama with HIV and is based on Jenna’s experiences as a UNICEF intern in Central America. It comes out next month, also from HarperCollins.

Now, what about a blockbuster memoir from the president’s wife? ‘Not now,’ she says. ‘Maybe after we go home.’

--Andrew Malcolm