RUSH: Amy in Freehold, New Jersey, as we head back to the phones. Thanks for calling, Amy. It’s great to have you here. Hi.
CALLER: What an honor to talk to you. Woo-hoo! I can check it off my bucket list in life.
RUSH: (chuckling)
CALLER: I actually wanted to call and tell you about your book, Rush Revere, and my little nine-year-old daughter who has fallen so in love with the book. She actually got her teacher to read both of the books to her whole class and two of her girlfriends actually ordered the book. The other excitement was that her teacher let them write their own Rush Revere adventures in class.
RUSH: You are kidding. So let me get this straight. Your daughter, nine years old, really loves the book.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: She got the teacher to read both books to the whole class?
CALLER: Absolutely, and she fell in love with them. I found her little diary today. She’d written a little note. She said, “Today I got the book Rush Revere, and that no good Elizabeth Sherman is up to something. I can’t wait.” So she loves the books. She got so excited that she got her teacher it to read them, and two of her girlfriends — like I said — ordered the books to read themselves.
RUSH: Well, that’s, of course, great. But then the teacher let them write their own Adventures of Rush Revere?
CALLER: Yes, and my daughter was very excited ’cause she was so enamored with Benjamin Franklin in the book. So when she rushed back into history, she rushed back to meet Ben Franklin.
RUSH: Oh, my gosh. I can’t tell you! I can’t tell you! This is like music to my ears. This is exactly, folks, the mission. The mission! This is exactly what we dream of when we write these books and put them together and we envision them being read. This is exactly, Amy, what we hope will happen.
CALLER: Well, my goodness, you sure did it. She actually said to me last week, “Have you been listening? Has he talked about the new book yet? ‘Cause I can’t wait to get my hands on it.” Because her other excitement is always to get to the end of the book to see where you’re going next. So when we got to those last two pages we were ecstatic that she gets to read about Paul Revere and his midnight ride in your next book.
RUSH: Oh, yeah. In fact… You know, I gotta be careful here, but it’s gonna be good. It’s gonna be so good. It is so good. I’m telling you, her expectations are going to be met.
CALLER: Oh, she’ll be pretty excited. Actually, it was funny when we read the first book. When she saw your picture first, she goes, “That’s the iced tea guy!”
RUSH: Okay, look, I’m gonna go fishing. I gotta do it. What is it she likes about these books so much?
CALLER: She loves the sense of history. She loves the funny parts with Liberty. But it’s really neat because we make so many connections. We read it together because I want to read it, too, but the discussions that we have in learning about history are great. Like she was enamored with William Bradford.
That was her other favorite in the first book, just to learn about his fate. She was astonished. You know, just to learn the things and how history is alive and how history is real. So it’s really spurred on great discussions, even just the little ties to modern day. Like when I was reading about King George, I couldn’t help but say, “Ahem. Obama.”
RUSH: Ha-ha. A-ha! A-ha! (clapping)
CALLER: I just started name dropping in there.
RUSH: We scored again, then. If that’s the takeaway, we scored again!
CALLER: Oh, you scored big time. You know, even regarding Elizabeth Sherman. She says, “Mommy, she’s like King George. She wants to bully everybody to get what she wants,” and I say, “That’s just like President Obama,” or in other ways, just those natural connections. And I must say, I think that Mark Levin is a little bit of a modern-day Patrick Henry. That’s my personal view.
RUSH: Amy, I gotta tell you, you’ve made my day here. So many parents have called here and told me that the kids are getting the books into their schools. Not the teachers and the principals or the school boards, but the students, the kids. I mean, it’s like a grassroots movement to get this book in the schools. It’s not top down. This is the kids doing it.
CALLER: Well, my daughter said to me, “Mom, we started our own Rush revolution.”
RUSH: Yeah. Exciting. And it’s also great that your teacher, your daughter’s teacher is letting it happen.
CALLER: Absolutely. We are blessed. Like I said, just to show her history in such an authentic way, knowing that what I’m sharing with her is the truth, it’s —
RUSH: Well, again, you know, I’m full of accolades here. If she zeroed in on William Bradford in the first book, and was moved by that, that’s another home run. That was the point. And she’s only nine. But you know, you’ve hit it, you’ve nailed it because these books re-create these actual events, and the reader is there. The history, it’s not a recitation. It is a written re-creation of what actually happened with the reader right there in the middle of it with — and here’s the real piece de resistance — while it’s going on, the lead characters explain to Rush Revere and his students why they’re doing what they’re doing. I mean, it’s just so wonderful to hear how this is being received. You’ve made my day. Amy, I’ve gotta go, but do you have the audio versions of the books?
CALLER: No, we don’t, we just read the books.
RUSH: I want to send you the audio versions of both. It’s just a different way of experiencing them. I read both. They’re unabridged. Every word that’s printed is on the audio version, they’re in both. They’re on CDs so you can listen in the car when you’re driving around or wherever. If you’ll hang on, Mr. Snerdley will get your address and we’ll get those out to you as quickly as we can. I cannot thank you enough. It’s so great. Just fabulous. I don’t know how to say thank you enough.