A chat with the
vice president’s better half

Kids Stuff
By William Feldman

Welcome to Kids Stuff. Today’s column includes a second private interview with Mrs. Lynne Cheney, second lady of the United States.
The wife of Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting Philadelphia on Sept. 16 and 17 celebrating Constitution Day at the Constitution Center, located at Independence Mall, 525 Arch St.
Again, this was a very exciting interview. I received an e-mail asking if I would be interested in having a follow-up interview. I am usually the one to pursue an interview. Anyway, Mrs. Cheney and her staff were very nice, understanding and accommodating.
I was kind of nervous about missing my first full day at school on Sept. 17, for an incredible interview after the events at the Constitution Center took place. They re-arranged their schedule to accommodate me at her Ritz Carlton Hotel suite.
Mrs. Cheney was in Philadelphia to celebrate Constitution Day and to present the James Madison Book Award to an author. The award is an annual prize of $10,000 to the book that best represents excellence in bringing knowledge and understanding of American history to children ages 5 to 14. Mrs. Cheney established this award in 2003, using proceeds from her books about children.
Here is a brief history on James Madison. James Madison was the fourth president of the United States, and George Clinton was his vice president. Madison was raised in Orange County, Va., and attended Princeton (then called the College of New Jersey).
Madison made a major contribution to the ratification of the Constitution by writing, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the Federalist essays. Later he was referred to as the "Father of the Constitution." Madison protested that the document was not "the offspring of a single brain," but rather, "the work of many heads and many hands."
Madison made major contributions to our United States history. On Sept. 17, 1787, the U.S. Constitution was signed by 39 men who changed U.S. history.
Mrs. Cheney said of Madison: "He may be the most important person in our history, that is least understood. I am not sure if it was because of his personality. He was not a great commanding figure like Washington."
Madison’s role in creating the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was crucial, Mrs. Cheney said.
"There would certainly not have been a Constitution without him. He worked with Hamilton to get the whole idea of a convention going," she said. "Once he got here — and he got here earlier than anyone else — he came up with the Virginia Plan, which was basically the paradigm for the Constitution. He kept notes so we know what went on.
"He spoke not the most, probably the third most of the delegates at the convention, but he was just enormously learned," Mrs. Cheney added. "All of those things were important. He helped with the ratification of the Constitution. He participated in the writing of the Federalist papers. He was the principle author of the Bill of Rights. It is such an amazing achievement that it is amazing to me that more people do not know who he is."
To be eligible for the James Madison Book Award in any given year, books must have been written for children in elementary or middle school and take up a subject in American history (only non-fiction will be considered), and the books must have been published (which in most cases will mean copyrighted) in the previous year.
Asked what the committee looks for in the award recipient, Mrs. Cheney said accurate history is most important.
"It happens a lot of times when people are writing for kids that they are not as careful as they might be if they were writing for grown-ups," she said. "We go to a lot of trouble to do fact checking."
The committee also looks for history that is appealing and tells a good story, and the winners that the committee selected for the most recent award did that, Mrs. Cheney said.
"One is a book about Ben Franklin that talks about his scientific achievements as well as his political achievements," she said. "I think once you get beyond the thing about the kite and discovering that lightning was electric, people don’t really understand his scientific achievements. So, it is an accurate story and an important story, and it is well told."
The committee receives hundreds of books, but as committee members start going through them, it becomes clear which are the real competitors, according to the vice president’s wife.
"We will go through a process where we list our favorites and I will list my first, second, third and fourth favorite," she explained. "Everyone does that and then gradually it is just a process of consensus. Then the winner is usually pretty obvious."
Mrs. Cheney earned her bachelor of arts degree with highest honors from Colorado College, her master of arts degree from the University of Colorado, and her Ph.D. (doctor of philosophy) with a specialization in 19th century British literature from the University of Wisconsin.
She has spent much of her professional life writing and speaking about the importance of knowing history and teaching it well.
I read that as chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993, Mrs. Cheney published American Memory, a report that warned about the failure of schools to transmit knowledge of the past to upcoming generations. She has emphasized the value of knowing our nation’s history.
Knowing all this, I wanted to know what Mrs. Cheney thought of the status of public education and the teaching of American history.
"I think we are doing a little better," she said. "I worried about it for a long time. I follow scores. You know the reading scores have really gone up. We are really doing a lot better in grade school. Fourth-grade scores have gone up a little. Eight-grade scores have gone up a little in reading, math and history. But, when you get to high school, scores just have not budged much, and that is a puzzle to me."
Asked to pick the most important part of the Constitution, Mrs. Cheney said it is hard to do so because the whole thing just "hangs" together.
"Partly because they were trying this big balancing act to have the three parts of government that would act as checks and balances upon one another," she said. "The Constitution is not poetic, but the Declaration is very poetic. The one poetic part is the Preamble, so that is my favorite part.
"It is beautiful," she added, "and the author of the Preamble was largely Governor Morris. Sort of an interesting detail that nobody knows. He was the one that took the Constitution after they made all of the hard decisions and sat down and wrote it. He put it all together at the end. He was part of the committee on style and arrangement."
How can parents get more involved in their children’s education?
"I think reading is probably the most important thing," said Mrs. Cheney, who has two grown daughters. "To encourage reading, it is probably a good idea to turn off the TV set. Maybe the rule should be you can’t watch it on weeknights. There is homework to do, and homework usually involves reading. Then if there is time left over, read a book you really are so anxious to get back to that you can’t wait."
Reading is the key to education, said Mrs. Cheney.
"If you think of the men who were here 220 years ago writing the Constitution, they were amazing readers, especially the ones we think of," she said. "Madison particularly, a man who loved books. Jefferson wasn’t here, but he was another amazing reader. He sent books across the ocean to Madison so that Madison could understand how governments worked. It was all of that study that made him able to create the foundation of the Constitution."
Mrs. Cheney has written five best-selling books about American history for children and their families:
1. America: A Patriotic Primer, May 2002, is an alphabet book that celebrates the ideas and ideals that are the foundations of our country.
2. A Is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women, September 2003, tells the story of women’s contributions to American history.
3. When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots, October 2004, tells of the dramatic military campaign that began on Christmas night, 1776.
4. A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America, October 2005, puts the great events and figures of American history into context and tells the story of freedom in America.
5. Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America, October 2006, is a state-by-state celebration of the cities, historical figures, artists, innovators, and landmarks that together create the wonder that is the United States. The illustrator is Robin Preiss Glasser.
"That was a very hard book," said Mrs. Cheney. "We worked on it for two and a half years. It is a complicated book. I am working on another book now on the Constitution. The illustrator on this book is Greg Harlin. It is fun to work with different illustrators, just as illustrators work with different authors."
Now you may be wondering how Mrs. Cheney became a children’s author.
"I had written for children before, but it just seemed like such an obvious thing to do when my husband became vice president and I got grandchildren in my life and lived close to them. I hadn’t been living close to the three grandchildren when he became vice president. So, that is probably a big impact," she said.
"I also just finished a book for adults that will be out next month that is about growing up in Wyoming. I suspect when my husband is not vice president anymore, that I will just keep writing."
Also I read that Mrs. Cheney joined in the National Constitution Center’s celebration of Constitution Day for the unveiling of The Constitutional Sources Project.
"ConSource," the first complete and fully searchable online database of original source materials for the Constitution, will launch publicly for the first time with students and a representative from each of the three branches of government. ••
Columnist William Feldman can be contacted by e-mail at wmkidscolumn@aol.com