A Snowy Tuesday Book Review

Mr. Peabody's Apples is a wonderful tale by Madonna about a boy named Tommy who witnesses his beloved teacher and baseball coach take an apple from the local market. He proceeds to tell everyone that Mr. Peabody is a thief after he saw a second apple taken and eaten. Mr. Peabody is then shunned by the community of Happyville. Tommy finally fesses up and feels horrible about spreading the rumor when he finds out that Mr. Peabody pays for the apples during his weekly trip to the market. Tommy wants to take it all back. Mr. Peabody has Tommy rip a pillow and letting the feathers fly with the wind. Now he tells him to pick them all up and of course connects it to gossip and rumors and how it's impossible to take back the things we say.

We read this book in the class I am taking the other day and today I was pondering upon the valuable lesson Mr. Peabody taught Tommy. The other day I shared a little piece of gossip with some teachers at a meeting. It had come from a person who heard it from a "reliable" source. To make a long story short, I found out that it really probably wasn't true and felt horrible about sharing it. I hadn't meant for so many people to hear about it, but everyone loves a juicy piece of gossip and it just got out of hand. It really is true: our words are feathers in the wind that are impossible to retrieve. I would do well to remember this a little more each day, as I have, on occasion, spoken before I thought.