RUSH: In recent weeks, ladies and gentlemen — recent months, actually — I have had to use an amazing amount of discipline. Seemingly every day we have had telephone calls from young children — between, 10, 12, 13, 14, some up to 18 — who have been reading Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans. And they’ve been telling me how much they love it, which has been a home run for us, because that was the mission and the target.
To hear them say how much they loved it and tell us things they were learning, and tell us how much they love the talking horse, it was just great — and then they would invariably say, “Are you going to make another book?” Well, I knew all along we were going to make another book, but I couldn’t say we were going to make another book. I had to wait until today to say that we were going to make another book, and now we’ve made it.
I have it and am holding it here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, and there it is on the Dittocam. It is now available for pre-order, and this is tough to say, folks, because the first book, the first child, there’s nothing like it. But this… We learned from the first; we added to the second. This is Rush Revere and the First Patriots, and I’ll have some details about the subject matter.
It’s basically about the Boston Tea Party and surrounding, accompanying events. We’ll have links to it at RushLimbaugh.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. But I have to tell you, all of you who have written and all of you who’ve called and all of you have begged for another one and asked if we are going to do another one: We were always gonna do a second book, and I can’t tell you the hard work that has gone into this, from the research to making sure it’s right.
That’s the whole point, is to tell the truth of the brilliance and the greatness of the founding and the history of this country to young people who need to learn it as early in life as they can. Because, sadly, many of them are not being taught the truth. There is no political agenda to any of this. This is just factually true American history, and there’s a great team that puts together the illustrations and lays it all out, and makes sure that what I write is gonna be relevant for the target age-group, which is 10 to 13.
Again, that’s the target age-group, but the book is for everybody, just like the first book was. It’s for everybody. It’s for parents and grandparents to buy and share with their kids and grandkids, to read to them, to read with them — and, if the experience we learned in the first book is the same here in the second one, even the adults are going to learn things that they didn’t know because they weren’t taught, which I find simply wonderful, that adults can learn something factually true about America in a series of books written for children.
There is a mission here, as I say. The mission is to connect with people that normally wouldn’t and don’t listen to a program like this but who someday will, and maybe their parents and grandparents do. I’m very proud of what I do, and I want as many people to be aware of it as possible. I’m very proud of what I believe. I’m very proud of my country. I want everybody to be. I really do. It may sound like pie-in-the-sky, but I want everybody to love this country as I do.
It pains me, it really does, to learn that there are people that hate it. I wish there was something I could do about it. I don’t want young people to be taken down the wrong path and taught to feel guilty or ashamed of their country, which is happening in way too many public schools. So we’ve got Rush Revere, our spokesman at TwoIfByTea.com, and his talking horse Liberty.
The horse can time travel anywhere they want to go in American history, and they can take students from the middle school where Rush Revere is a substitute teacher with them. They can take their iPhone, their smartphone, and videotape actual history and show it to the class. It’s such fun to do — and, apparently, it’s such fun to read. So it’s book two. It’s available today wherever you get books.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me just say a couple of more things about the new book, Rush Revere and the First Patriots: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans. We did not write this book after the first book went on sale and we saw how popular it was. There were always going to be two books. We do not have a factory churning these things out. They are worked on singularly.
They are their own effort, and, as is everything that’s part of the EIB Network, everything that we have is put into it. So it’s not a last-minute decision to try to capitalize on what people might think was unexpected popularity. It was always a plan to start with two books. How do you do an American history series with just one? Now, “Does this mean, Rush, that there’s going to be a third?” I can’t tell you that.
I have to use my discipline again here. Let me tell you just a little bit about this, without giving it away. The focal point is the Boston Tea Party, but there’s much more than that. Rush Revere and Liberty time travel back with some students to meet Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, Sam Adams — and, in one of my favorite parts of the book, Rush Revere gets into an argument with King George III over why in the hell he’s being so mean to the colonists.
What a fun opportunity that was. If I can say so myself, what a teachable moment, to be able to take young kids back in time and have them learn about the oppressive nature of tyranny by having one of the stars of the book actually get into an argument (and live to tell the story, by the way) with King George, defending colonists and so forth. This is pre-Revolution. This is leading up to it. The Stamp Act is part of the book, and the Quartering Act.
While this may sound intimidating, it’s just like the first book: It’s gonna be easily learnable by the target group of young people. There will be an audio version as well. I did that as well. I also want to mention there’s a couple of other things before we move on. Rush Revere and Liberty both have a mailbox to accept e-mail from young fans at the Adventures of Rush Revere World, which is located at the TwoIfByTea.com website.
You go to TwoIfByTea.com, and it’s the Adventures of Rush Revere portal. You click on it, and it’ll take you to the Adventures of Rush Revere World. You can send photos. You can leave e-mail — and a lot of it, we try to answer it. There’s a new section located in the Town Hall that shows some of the letters and photos that have already been sent in from around town, around the country. You click on the town hall and you go to the Social Center, then you’ll see what I’m talking about.
But, for you parents, it’s a perfect way for your kids who are reading the books to have an interactive experience with the stars of the books at the TwoIfByTea.com website. Now, in addition, these two people, Liberty and Revere, after the success of the first book, have performer’s egos and such. So they’re now demanding more attention than just the books. Revere has asked that I mention his new Twitter account, @RushRevere.
He demanded to have a Twitter account. He started as the main spokesperson for Two If By Tea and became the lead character in the adventure series, so now he’s got his own Twitter account so he can remain hip with the times. He wants a lot of followers. He wants a lot of followers from people reading the book. So, if you’re hip and if you have a Twitter account, or, if your kids do, you can sign up to follow Rush Revere today.
He’s got that set up to go. Anybody that signs up to follow Rush Revere today will be automatically entered to win a personalized book and a special gift. So that’s it. Pre-orders are now, and it’s March the 11th the book actually goes on sale, or is delivered. But it’s pre-orders today at the usual places, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, everywhere.
I don’t want to leave anybody out. iTunes, you name it. We’re thrilled. I can’t tell you how thrilled and excited we are. I mean, everybody says, “You gotta get the young demo.” Well (chuckling) here we go, and to be able to do it with this device and have the truth of American history be the vehicle, it’s a great opportunity, folks, and I thank after you for helping to make it such an overwhelming success that it is.
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RUSH: Here’s Doug in Salt Lake City. It’s great to have you, sir, on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, how are you doing?
RUSH: Very well. Thanks much.
CALLER: I wanted to call and congratulate you on your success, but also thank you. I’m a direct descendant of William Bradford, and I can’t tell you how much I love this book. It’s awesome. I bought the video copy — or the audio; sorry.
RUSH: That’s amazing. You know, you are the second or third person that can trace their genealogy to prominent figures in this book. You can trace yourself to William Bradford.
CALLER: We go back quite a bit further than that, but, you know, we were always raised that even though William Bradford and the like good people were on that boat, we were pretty much asked to regard everybody on that boat. Because we don’t believe that anybody there wasn’t specifically placed there by God. It’s fantastic what they accomplished.
RUSH: No question about it. It’s unbelievable. It’s the odds that they faced, the risks they took. And, you know, the risks that they assumed were far different than what risks are today. Crossing the ocean back then was a life-risking thing. There was no guarantee. I mean, very few think of it as a risk today. It’s more you’re inconvenienced by the amount of time it’s gonna take. I just find it fascinating to try to put yourself in people’s shoes back then and the times they lived through.
When they arrived, there was no place to stay.
They had to stay on the boat for months after they arrived.
The boat was tiny for that many people. It was just, oh, a degree of commitment and suffering that you don’t find necessary in the country today, largely because of the hard work that they did when they did. I’m impressed, and Bradford’s story is profound. His journal is a gift from God, as far as I’m concerned.