<div>It's a good thing I'm not intimidated by intelligent women, because we have a ton of them in our family.</div>
<div>Not literally, but intelligence doesn't skip a generation with the X-chromosomes in this family. I think three of the smartest people I know are my mother, my wife and my daughter. All three women are brilliant and all three are high achievers in different fields -- my mother in education, my wife in science and my daughter in diplomacy.</div>
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[caption id="attachment_1531" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Maddie -- the fourth generation"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Maddie-2.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1531" title="Maddie (2)" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Maddie-2-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>[/caption]

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<div>Now it has been obvious for some time that my lovely granddaughter, Madison Nicole, is a very intelligent little girl. But a story I heard just today from her mother shows me that Maddie won't be taking a back seat to anyone in this family when it comes to intelligence.</div>
<div>Pauline said that she had been going through Maddie's books, toys and clothes to sort out some of the stuff she had outgrown and make room for new stuff. She came across a copy of Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," a book I seem to recall giving to Maddie.</div>
<div>"I find the book horribly sad," Pauline wrote. "I refuse to read to her on account of it making me cry every time I read it."</div>
<div>Of course, Pauline says, that has only made Maddie more interested in the book. She flips through it, looks at the pictures and gets her babysitter and her father to read it to her.</div>
<div>"Today, on the way home from school, she was telling me the plot of the book," Pauline said. "I'm kind of half listening and inserting 'uh-huh' where appropriate when she says, 'But you know mommy, I don't think the tree is really a tree.'"</div>
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[caption id="attachment_1532" align="alignleft" width="241" caption="The Giving Tree"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-giving-tree.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1532" title="the-giving-tree" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/the-giving-tree-241x300.jpg" alt="" width="241" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

That got Pauline's attention and she asked Maddie what she meant.</div>
<div>"I think the tree is like a person who loves the boy," Maddie said. "Maybe a girl, or maybe a boy."</div>
<div>Stunned, Pauline said, "Yeah, honey. I think you might be right."</div>
<div>Amazing. Without anyone suggesting it to her, or even mentioning the possibility, this little girl -- she turned 3 in September -- figured out on her own that something in a book she liked was a symbol for something else.</div>
<div>"Where did she get this?" Pauline asked. "How does she even know about symbols?  She's reading all these other fantastical books, how does she know that this one book is different, that it isn't just a story about a tree and a boy?"</div>
<div>When I was her age, I was sitting on the floor counting my toes and trying to get the same answer twice in a row. I don't think I discovered symbolism until I was 23.</div>
<div>So her great-grandmother was an educator, her grandmother a scientist and her mother a diplomat.</div>
<div>Maddie?</div>
<div>I have a feeling she's going to write great books. Either that or governor of Washington.</div>
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