# Who wrote "The Pet Goat" of 9-11 ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 29, 2004, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695 "2004-04-29T16:39:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/1 "2004-04-29T16:39:50Z")
I’ve been trying to find a copy of the book Bush read to schoolkids on the morning of 9-11, but am having little luck. Despite all the various timelines, its not clear whether the president was reading a story titled “Pet Goat” or “The Pet Goat,” or from a book with a similar name. Does anyone know just what it was he was reading from, who wrote it, and where I can find a copy? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/2 "2004-04-29T16:55:54Z")
After poking about on the internet looking this up, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is an apocryphal tale. For one thing, I can find no reputable souces which carry this story. Pleny of message board topics and conspiracy-theory sites pop up, but not one credible journalism site, like CNN or anything. For another, neither Barnes and Noble or Amazon have this title listed, or anything close to it. Until someone can provide a reliable cite for this even, I shall raise my eyebrow at it thusly: :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/3 "2004-04-29T17:53:05Z")
Not that it answers the original question, but from the [Wall Street Journal](http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB107991342102561383-IJjgoNjlaF3oJ2rZnuIaKeBm4,00.html): > [@](#): > > He followed along for five minutes as children read aloud a story about a pet goat. ---
**Author:** ![Lyllyan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@Lyllyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lyllyan)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/4 "2004-04-29T17:54:44Z")
You can see a video of the event in question at this site [http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/2002/06/12\_BookerLinks.html](http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/2002/06/12_BookerLinks.html) from Buzzflash News. The title is “The Pet Goat” There are links to a video, but I had lots of problems getting it to play - it takes quite a while for it to load. ---
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/5 "2004-04-29T19:05:02Z")
[This link](http://www.ericblumrich.com/quicktime/bushbig.mov) gave me better results than the Buzzflash ones linked to in **Lyllyan** ’s post. It’s most definitely a story called _“The Pet Goat”_, **QED** , although it’s unclear whether or not that’s the book title or merely one of the stories in a collection. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/6 "2004-04-29T19:14:34Z")
[QUOTE=Antonius BlockIt’s most definitely a story called _“The Pet Goat”_, **QED** , although it’s unclear whether or not that’s the book title or merely one of the stories in a collection.[/QUOTE] I’m still looking. Unfortunately, nearly every sigle result returned by Google references the Bush story, and none give any further details about it. It also appears to be the title of an album by Ill Gotten Gainz. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2004, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/7 "2004-04-29T20:15:42Z")
Could it be **The Very Hungry Caterpillar?** That’s the book George W. Bush always reads to kids whenever he does one of those photo-ops. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/8 "2004-07-03T05:34:17Z")
To add some closure to this: A very good researcher on Google Answers [tracked this down](http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=367341): it’s from a reading textbook called Reading Mastery II, Storybook 1, by Siegfried Engelmann and Elaine Bruner ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/9 "2004-07-03T05:53:39Z")
Thanks **SmackFu**! ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/10 "2004-07-03T22:05:14Z")
The story can be found [here.](http://www.ledgeofliberty.com/2004/06/mystery_of_the_.html) Oddly enough, it seems to end on a cliffhanger: > [@](#): > > “The girl had a pet goat. She liked to go running with her pet goat. She played with her goat in her house. She played with her goat in her yard. But the goat did something that made the girl’s dad mad. The goat ate things. He ate cans and he ate cakes. He ate cakes and he ate cats. One day her dad said, that goat must go. He ate too many things. The girl said, that if you let the goat stay with us, I will see that he stops eating all those things. Her dad said he will try it. So the goat stayed and the girl made him stop eating cans and cakes and cats and cakes. But one day a car robber went into the girls house. He saw a big red car in the house and said, I will steal that car. He ran to the car and started to open the door. The girl and the goat were playing in the back yard. They did not see the car robber. > > More to come." ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/11 "2004-07-04T00:59:16Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > The story can be found [here.](http://www.ledgeofliberty.com/2004/06/mystery_of_the_.html) Oddly enough, it seems to end on a cliffhanger: > [@Siegfried Engelmann & Elaine C. Bruner](#): > > But one day a car robber went into the girls house. He saw a big red car in the house and said, I will steal that car. He ran to the car and started to open the door. The girl and the goat were playing in the back yard. They did not see the car robber. It’s painful to see that American schoolchildren are being taught that “robber” and “thief” are synonyms. A) The malefactor has designs on the car _itself_, not its contents. B) He is not menacing anyone or threatening physical harm in order to secure the car. Argh. Reading material that’s sub-literate, combined with that freaky martial drum-major reading method? No wonder kids are in trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/12 "2004-07-04T01:23:12Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Argh. Reading material that’s sub-literate, combined with that freaky martial drum-major reading method? No wonder kids are in trouble. As the Master explains, even the classic “Dick and Jane” reader was not without its problems: [How do you diagram the sentence, “See Spot run”?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a980814a.html) Those of us who wanted to read learned anyway. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-the-pet-goat-of-9-11/242695/13 "2004-07-04T01:42:03Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > I’ve been trying to find a copy of the book Bush read to schoolkids on the morning of 9-11, but am having little luck. Despite all the various timelines, its not clear whether the president was reading a story titled “Pet Goat” or “The Pet Goat,” or from a book with a similar name. Does anyone know just what it was he was reading from, who wrote it, and where I can find a copy? Ima Blivious