RUSH: Speaking of e-mails and so forth, we are being queried, shall I say, from a lot of people very eager to hear if they won the sweepstakes that we did last week, the five day trip for four people to the Hawaiian islands. People are still holding out hope that they’re gonna be the ones to receive the big call. We appreciate everybody who participated, and we hope that you are enjoying your new Liberty plush stuffed horse. We have not yet called the winner. Kathryn and I will be calling the grand prize winner early next week, and we can’t wait. So you still have a chance. Nobody’s won yet, nobody’s lost yet, so you’re still in the running. If you haven’t heard from us, you are still in the running.
We received, I have to tell you, the most amazing entries for the recent Adventures of Rush Revere challenges. Some of these young kids, these Americans are so incredibly talented, the feedback that we get from them. People ask me all the time, “How do you stay optimistic?” It’s because of things like this, you know, reaching out, reaching young people, having them participate in this, learning American history.
Can I tell you something else? I don’t want to spend too much time on this. I have to say thanks again. We got the latest rankings in sales figures for Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner. And you know what happened? The first book in the series, the Brave Pilgrims, has skyrocketed to near the top 10 again. That book was the first in the series, and it’s almost exactly two years old. All four of these books continue to percolate crazily out there. That’s another reason we stay optimistic.
These books unlock the imagination of young people. I’m convinced that’s why they love reading them so much. They dream, they imagine, they’re taken right to these events in history that we are attempting to teach them. So it’s very, very, very rewarding, and one of the reasons I’m able to stay upbeat and positive. Some days it’s tough. It really is.
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RUSH: Here’s Pamela in Jamesville, New York, as we head back to the phones. Pamela, thank you for calling. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s such an honor to speak with you. I’ve been a faithful supporter and longtime listener for over 20 years.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much.
CALLER: Well, I wanted to say thank you for writing the Rush Revere series, because my children absolutely love them. I’m a homeschool mom. I have a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old boy and girl, and another two-year-old, but my two children love the books. We have all of them. We have the CDs because I had to buy the CDs because they read the book and then they want to listen to the CD and they prefer to hear you read them instead of me.
RUSH: How does that make you feel?
CALLER: (laughing) Well, I just joked with my husband, probably because next to my voice, my husband’s voice, yours is probably the one they know the most.
RUSH: Well, I am actually a highly trained vocal professional as well.
CALLER: Well, that you are.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: That you are. And I do have to tell you, my son Ari, he’s eight, I was going over what we were gonna study in history for part of our curriculum and I said we’re going to be talking about the Pilgrims and going through that. He said, “Mom, mom, mom, I already know everything there is to know about the Pilgrims.” And I said, “Well, how is that?” He said, “Well, I read Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims.”
RUSH: All right! All right. You’ve actually got all four books and all four audio versions?
CALLER: All four books, all four CDs, and my eight-year-old son has read them all, and then my daughter, who’s seven, has just started reading them and they got hooked with Liberty and then they got into the actual —
RUSH: Well, you know what, I have to send them each a Liberty stuffed animal. I mean, since you’ve bought all these things. You’ve got Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner, you’re saying, you have the latest one?
CALLER: It’s already done. My son was asking me when the next one was coming out.
RUSH: See, we can’t write ’em fast enough, folks. We need a factory here. We can’t turn ’em out — well, look, Pamela, I need you to hang on so that the nice man who answered your call can get your address so that we can put together a little goody package for your kids, including the Liberty stuffed animal toy, and they’ll love it, I guarantee you. Appreciate it.
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RUSH: The saga continues. Yeah, I mentioned earlier when I said we’re gonna announce all the winners of the latest Rush Revere sweepstakes next week, the winner of the trip for five days, four people to the Hawaiian islands, nobody won yet. We haven’t called a winner. Still could be you. Will happen early next week. We’ve also constantly asked and are running little contests for prizes for the young readers of these books to submit videos to win valuable prizes. We look for the most creative as they relate to the things they’ve learned reading the books and so forth. And you can find all these at RushRevere.com.
We just had the latest winner, a seven-year-old. A panel of judges, I have to tell you, had a really difficult time selecting the winners this time. The entries were all that good. After numerous reviews we were thrilled to announce that Hannah J. is the first place winner of the reporter on the scene Adventures of Rush Revere challenge. It’s just simply fantastic for a seven-year-old to create this kind of video is uncanny. There’s YouTube video. I’m not gonna read off the YouTube address here, but you can see all this at Facebook.com/RushRevere.