I've read Molly's Pilgrim on the white couch, the black couch, during breakfast (take a bite, turn a page), on the t.v. room couch, and in the pillow corner. Then Rose discovered I had also checked out the book on tape, so I've been listening to Molly's Pilgrim over dinner every night. Luckily, it's a great story.

Molly is a Russian Jewish immigrant who gets picked on at school. For Thanksgiving, the kids are supposed to make pilgrim dolls out of wooden clothespins. Molly's mom makes hers look Russian because they are pilgrims too, they came to a new world to worship God in their own way.

The story is beautifully written by one of my favorite authors, Barbara Cohen. The message is powerful, particularly since we've been dealing with ridiculing issues at school. But never mind all that, Rose is fixated on dressing the doll.

At first she pulled one of wooden clothespins out the kitchen drawer (we use them as chip clips), and suggested we dress it. I explained that it was the wrong type; mommom had the right type (at least she used to when I was growing up and wanted to make pilgrim dolls); and we would get one sometime later another day.

And then, by jove, she happened to walk in the door with an old-fashioned clothespin. They had done an art project at school painting random wooden objects. I told her we could dress it.

She wanted a jacket, a scarf, tights, a skirt, buttons on the jacket. . .Can I just explain here that I don't sew, not one little whit, let alone fashion accessories in miniature. Although Rose can need to have everything exactly so, she can also rely on her deep imagination. We pulled Daddy's old blue bathrobe and a garish yellow t-shirt from the dust rag drawer, and with the help of scissors, tape, and silver ribbon completed every piece of clothing.

Rose's pilgrim sits on the windowsill. She'll probably become a permanent fixture at our Thanksgivings.