In a national poll, 2,000 11th- and 12th-graders named as the most famous Americans (excluding presidents and their wives): Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Benjamin Franklin, Amelia Earhart, Oprah Winfrey, Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein.

What do teenagers know? Well, the fact of the matter is that a poll of 2,000 adults age 45 and older produced their list with only two differences from that of the teens. The oldsters chose Betsy Ross and Henry Ford instead of Monroe and Einstein.

A Mother's Day gift from the third of our five daughters is "Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation" by Cokie Roberts (author of the New York Times bestseller "Founding Mothers.")

Roberts' book topped the New York Times best-selling author list and is considered tops as a political commentator as well.

Publishers Weekly praised her "delightfully intimate and confiding" style and pointed out that she brought to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork for a better society."

Almost every quotation included in the book is by a woman, to a woman or about a woman.

From first ladies to freethinkers, educators to explorers, the group includes: Abigail Adams, Margaret B. Smith, Martha Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Monroe, Louisa Catherine Adams, Eliza Hamilton, Theodosia Burr, Rebecca Gratz, Louisa Livingston, Rosalie Calvert and Sacagawea.

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A Washington Post reviewer wrote that the new book by Roberts is a tribute "to feminism and the solidarity of womankind ... a celebration of women in all their various roles: mother, sister, civil rights advocate, consumer advocate, first-class mechanic, politician -- which Roberts's own mother once was."

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Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. Perhaps you remember when, from 1996 to 2002, she and Sam Donaldson co-anchored the weekly ABC interview program, "This Week."

In addition to broadcasting, she -- along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts -- writes a weekly column syndicated in newspapers around the country by United Media and both are contributing editors to USA Weekend.

Together, they wrote "From This Day Forward," an account of their now more than 44-year marriage.

Other books by Cokie Roberts are "We Are Our Mothers' Daughters" about women in American history and "Founding Mothers," the companion volume to "Ladies of Liberty."

Mother of two and grandmother of six, she lives with her husband in Bethesda, Md.

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Flipping through Cokie's book, I stopped when I saw the word "Kansas."

Here's the beginning of a paragraph on page 365:

"At age seventy-one, Mother Duchesne fulfilled her dream of missionary work with the Indians. She joined other nuns and priests in Sugar Creek, Kansas, in an effort to educate the Potawatomi. But the language was too difficult for her to learn (she had had a very hard time with English), so she spent most of her time praying for the success of the mission, earning her the Indian name Kwah-kah-kum-ad -- 'the woman who always prays.' Kansas proved too hard for the old nun's health, so she had to retreat, feeling like a failure."

Reading on a bit further, I learned that her work starting schools for the Indians earned her sainthood. She was canonized Rose Philippine Duchesne in 1988.

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The mail brought a flier telling the Legend of the Dreamcatcher. It is that good dreams pass through the center hole of a woven "dream catcher" while bad dreams are trapped in the web.

E-mail Dolores Hope at dandchope@juno.com.