One question to ask. "Where did the bump on the head come from?" A good answer says: not from anyone who knew Newton. It was added later because it is funnier.

One thing to do at the table. Play telephone with a true family story. One person whispers it to the next, round the table, and the last person says it out loud. Then the first person tells it again. What grew? What fell off? Nobody lied.

Make a two-column page. Draw a line down a sheet of paper. On the left, in ink, write what you know from a source. On the right, in pencil, write what people like to say. Do it for one family story this week.

The grown-up layer. The story teaches three habits historians use: say exactly what is claimed, follow it back to the oldest telling, and ask who was there and how long afterwards they spoke. The real sources are Stukeley's memoir, Voltaire, and John Conduitt's notes, and none of them says the apple hit Newton. Danya also learns that the witnesses were not lying. Stories grow because people like better stories. That is why stretching is only honest when you say that you did it.