Finishing up some work for publisher The Child’s World this week. I’m crafting the back matter for 14 children’s book titles for its Folktales from around the World, American Tall Tales, and Children’s Favorite Stories series. It’s been fun revisiting old classics like Johnny Appleseed, Chicken Little, Paul Bunyan, and Pecos Bill and learning new ones like Momotaro and The Tiger, the Brahman and the Jackal. I’m writing about people, place, and morals—what stories tell us between the lines.

When researching Johnny Appleseed, I thought it was interesting to find Apple’s use of “John Appleseed” in its advertisements and application demos. I always saw that but didn’t think much about the connection. One cool thing I never noticed is the icon for TextEdit application (above, right), which I use instead of rtf files a lot of the time when writing web copy. I never wondered what the icon’s text actually says, but now I know:

Dear Kate,

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

Take Care,
John Appleseed

I think we know what Apple’s moral is…