RUSH: Tuesday… I have to struggle not to talk about this every day. I know that that would be counterproductive if I did, and I never want to get to the point where you say, “Come on, Rush, get off of it, move on to something else.” That would be very bad. That’s why I don’t repeat a lot of points that I make. That’s why I don’t push my own stuff all the time, ’cause this is a program about the issues and the country and so forth.

But Tuesday, October the 29th, my first book since 1993 — 20 years — will be released: Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims. If you haven’t heard me talk about this, very briefly. All these years I’ve had people suggest I do another book, and I said, “I’ve done one. I did two. I don’t want to do another one like that yet.” Vince Flynn was really encouraging me. “Well, come up with something new.” I just didn’t get the fire of desire. And then Kathryn said, “You know what? You’re always talking about the education system and how much you’re worried about the distortions in American history that are being taught. Why don’t you write a book for kids about the country and its founding?”

And that gave me pause. Yeah, now, that could be a challenge. That’s something I haven’t done, write a book for an audience of 10- to 13-year-olds that actually is intended for everybody. And so that’s what happened. And what we’ve done, we’ve taken the iconic figure from Two If By Tea, my old buddy Rush Revere, we’ve made him a substitute teacher at a middle school Anywhere, USA. We’ve given him a talking horse named Liberty. Liberty, the talking horse, can time travel anywhere in American history. This book is about the Pilgrims, written to counter what’s being taught about the Pilgrims today in the multicultural curriculum.

Now, when I say it’s written for 10- to 13-year-olds, that’s the target audience, but it’s intended for families, homeschoolers. It’s intended for everybody because the point is to teach the truth about the history of this country, because it’s great. It’s miraculous. It’s really special. The United States is a blessed, special place in the world and it’s worth being proud of, not ashamed of. It doesn’t need to have its history revised or rewritten. I mean the story of pilgrims and Christopher Columbus is that white settlers brought racism and sexism and bigotry and syphilis and all kinds of horrible things, and they came here and they took and they plundered and they robbed and they stole from the Native Americans. Then they created a country that was unjust and immoral, unfair, for the white majority, and everybody else took it on the chin, and that’s what’s being taught. It’s what’s being taught to kids these days. And it isn’t true.

I mean, Rush Revere has an iPhone. Rush Revere takes his iPhone back to Holland, back to England, on the Mayflower back to the Plymouth settlement. And Rush Revere uses the video feature and then is able to bring it back and beam it to his class where he’s a substitute teacher. He can take a couple of students with him on these time travels. I don’t want to give too much away. But the structure is that when you allow your character to time travel with a talking horse, believe me, everything’s possible. And that makes it so much fun.

It’s all oriented toward teaching the truth, and not just the truth factually, but the truth morally. But it doesn’t preach. And it doesn’t pound. And there aren’t any pointed fingers, anything like that. It was a real fun, fun project. And pre-orders have been up for about a month, maybe a little longer, September sometime. The pre-orders went through the roof. It’s hardcover. It’s a real book. It’s not a pamphlet or a little, tiny children’s book. It’s a real book, more than 200 pages. It’s got illustrations galore in it. Gotta have pictures. It is available as an e-book as well, and I, El Rushbo, did the audio reading. And it’s not abridged. It’s the whole thing.

That all hits on October 29th at all your favorite booksellers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble and the iTunes bookstore and independent booksellers. We’re just excited as we can be about it, and I could tell you about this every day, and I haven’t, for actually two reasons. The more I talk about it, the more I’m gonna give it away, and I don’t want to do that, and I also don’t want to have you say, as I said, “Come on, Rush, stick to the issues.” You know, I don’t want it to become what some of you think is my way-too-often repeated golf stories, about which I haven’t had one in six weeks or maybe two months now. So, anyway, that’s five days from now. That’s October 29th.

Well, yeah, yeah, Snerdley keeps reminding me. I’m not really sure that the retail price is ever fully charged anywhere, but the pre-order price is like $11.99, and the retail price is around $19 or so, so there probably is some financial advantage to pre-ordering the thing. (interruption) Yeah, of course I know we’re only about a month away from Black Friday. (interruption) No, it’s too big for a stocking. Well, you have to get a big stocking, but don’t say it could fit in a stocking. That makes it sound like it’s like one of those books with two words a page, you know, like Jim Wright used to write. No, no, no. It’s a real book.

Anyway, we’re really excited. People ask, “Why? You’ve done this before.” I know, but I haven’t done this. I have not tried to actually target — I’ve talked about it all the time. We do on this program, we lament education, what’s happening. So this is a stab at it. This is my version of what else I can do.