The Magic Mushroom

Thursday Book Day

Jun 18, 2026

Happy Book Day!

I know it’s Thursday but in my defense I was driving back home all day from seeing my family in Maryland. You read about our pottery adventure yesterday, but I also discovered something amazing that preempted our regular Book Day. But first, a little story to set the stage. And the context.

Once upon a time, there was a frog that ate a magic mushroom. The frog felt pain a little on the mushroom and by mistake ate a whole thing. After that, he felt alright. In fact, it was a week before he felt strange.

Whenever he hopped, he felt like he was flying. One time while he was swimming, he was pulled under the water by a fish and was carried to a small cave under the water. Soon he swam into it. Almost immediately he was grabbed by a big trout that had ten fingers on each hand and ten on his feet.

The frog was then carried for a long carriage ride into a great big palace. The floor was made of silver and the walls were made of silver. There were stained glass windows that were made of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and opals. There was a huge gold throne in the middle of the room.

Far on the throne sat a king with two heads. The frog was thrown before the king. He pronounced:

“My boy, you will die because you ate the magic mushroom.”

The frog said, “How?”

“Tomorrow the executioner will behead you.”

Then the executioner came with his sharp axe. It was so sharp that it split a diamond. He was ready to cut off the frog’s head when the frog jumped up and ran into a long tunnel and into the water.

Many of the fish tried to push him back, but he kicked them out of the way. A minute later a guard grabbed him and ran into his house, which was underground. The guard tied him there for five minutes until he tied the guard with ten ropes on each foot and hand.

The frog chased after him. He ran out the doorway and jumped onto a big rock and tried to climb away, but the guard jumped into another cave and slammed the door shut.

The guard had brought along a gun that shot little clumps of mud, and he began firing at the frog. One ball of mud hit the frog’s foot and it began to sink. So the frog hopped and climbed onto another one.

On that one there was a pile of stones that were left there by one of his friends. The frog picked up a stone and threw it at the guard. Then he began throwing stones. The guard ran away.

The frog paddled his boat down the lake toward the river. The rapids were high that day, and the frog got an idea. He would put his foot upside down on a twig, then he would squeeze into the pond and hide until they passed.

About a hundred yards away there was a whirlpool, and they would get caught and drown.

So the frog rose to shore and watched as the whole army disappeared in the whirlpool.

The kingdom under the lake was never seen again.

Malcolm O. Munro

November 5, 1975

Grade 5. Mrs. Wilson.

So, I’ve hijacked Book Day with this drivel. Here’s why I did it.

It was the comment from Mrs. Wilson. Along with plenty of red ink. It’s hard to read in the picture so here it is:

What an action-packed adventure! Excellent vocabulary. Malcolm, you just have to obey all grammar rules. Then I would like to have an autographed copy of your first best-seller!"

Its the reason for this story.

On Monday when we were all busy making bowls and cups together, my 9-year-old granddaughter casually mentioned she wrote a story. My daughter reads my INNER CIRCLE, but because I use lots of bad words, doesn’t let the kids read. She knows I’m a writer.

I’m impressed, but so would every grandparent. She offers to read it later after we clean up.

An hour or so later, we’re sitting under a tree in their backyard when she runs out of the house carrying a sheaf of notebook paper. I expected one page in big letters. This was a book. A big one.

Then she read it. It was good.

Really good.

REALLY really good. I immediately suspected AI. But then I remembered she doesn’t use a computer in her homeschool curriculum. To research things anyway. She reads books. And she loves to read. And write apparently.

My daughter came out carrying my newest grandson. She smiled as I listened to the story.

I told her how much I loved it (and I really did!) and that she was a great writer. She told me she had a lot of other stories in the pipeline but they take her lots of time to write. I quizzed her on her creative process and as she described it, I saw her eyes move from mine into an imaginary world and she moved her hands as she talked about how the characters arc and scenes shift.

I don’t want to hijack her moment, but I realized a coincidence, as if there is such a thing. I wrote my famous mushroom story when I was the same age as my granddaughter.

I pulled it up on my phone. The original and a text version I translated painstakingly.

I showed her the comments on the top from the teacher. I saw how she beamed at our connection together.

And I thought again about my story. The Magic Mushroom. And how good Mrs. Wilson’s feedback felt. So good my mom kept that letter for me all these years. I found it when I went through a bunch of her junk recently. I never forgot that feedback. I want my granddaughter’s talent to flourish. And maybe have an opportunity I didn’t get. Or even consider.

“Do you want to turn this into a book?” I asked.

She gave me a quizzical look. The same one she gives me when I refer to the little port-a-pottie in the park behind them as The Fun Playhouse.

Then she saw I was serious.

I guess it’s the same thing that would happen if you bought a fixer upper Corvette and then found out your grandpa worked the assembly lines in the plant in Bowling Green.

She was ecstatic. We spent much of that day putting our plan together.

She’s typing the many pages out and we’re going to launch it soon.

It’s a great story.

But not the only story.

As I’m sitting down to write this tonight, I’m trying to find the PDF of my mushroom story to include in this post. I haven’t opened it in a long time and only opened it yesterday on my phone.

When I opened it on my big monitor, I double-checked the comments from Mrs. Wilson to make sure I had them correctly transcribed. I was just about to close it when I noticed one in the left margin, In red cursive parallel to the text.

I read it.

Then I looked away and then read it again.

Do you want to make this into a book?

From Mrs. Wilson. November 5, 1975.

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but since I grew up on the Twilight Zone and Stephen King books, I don’t discount the unconventional.

So the book is coming. And according to my granddaughter, many more.

Stay tuned.

Here’s a sneak peak!