HOT BOOK: It’s a bestseller, but is...

HOT BOOK: It’s a bestseller, but is it a fake? That’s the question about “The Education of Little Tree,” the “true story” of an orphan who went to live with his Cherokee grandparents in the ‘30s. . . . Now there are claims that its author was actually a white segregationist who wrote speeches for former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace (A12). The book has been doing well in Orange County and will be No. 2 on the The Times’ paperback nonfiction list on Sunday. Booksellers doubt that the flap will hurt. Susie Gorrie of the Little Professor Book Center in Placentia says, “Any controversy helps a book, it doesn’t hurt it.”