Undercovery is a lie, and this blog’s name is an attempt to make up for it.

My sixth grade class was part of a reading competition called BOOK IT!, where students could win a prize for reading a certain number of books by the end of year—I believe for us it was 30 books and the prize was pizza.

I wanted to win more for the recognition than the pizza, and my primary strategy was the Goosebumps series. I don’t think the average Goosebumps book met the minimum page requirement, however: 1. they were close enough, 2. I owned a lot of them, and 3. they were quick and enjoyable to read. The problem was I didn’t own enough Goosebumps to meet the goal. I made up the difference in two ways:

1. I read other books
2. I claimed to have read some books I didn’t actually read
   • Some of these were real books
   • Some, such as a book called Undercovery, were not

At the end of the year, I submitted my list of books and won my recognition. Of the books I didn’t actually read, Undercovery always stuck with me—I’m not sure how I came up with that name or what it was supposed to be about. Since Undercovery didn’t exist but I took credit for it, the least I can do is write it now. Time will tell if this effort redeems the lie.

…I did a little more research and found something interesting. Among my earliest saved writings is an Eighth Grade Autobiography, which was a mandatory series of introspective essays. One of these essays is Books I’ve Read:

So did I again take credit for Undercovery, or am I misremembering the BOOK IT! story and here is actually the first time Undercovery appears? Who knows, but either way there’s the evidence. I suppose my next blog should be Dragon Doom.