RUSH: We are so blessed, Kathryn and I and everybody on the Rush Revere Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans team. We just published our fifth book in the series, Rush Revere and the Presidency. It’s the fifth book in three years, and the purpose of the Rush Revere Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans is these are books for young people to teach them the glorious truth of the founding of the greatest nation on earth, the United States of America, precisely because it’s not being taught in enough places in America anymore.
And I’ll tell you how this all came about. It was easily seven years ago now, the late novelist Vince Flynn was at one of the Spring Flings that I hosted at my house. It’s basically a guy golf weekend, long weekend. And he kept imploring me to write a book before the next election came around so the book would be available — ready — for the next election, and this would have been… You know, it might have even been for the 2008 election. It might be that long ago. I said, “Vince, I’ve been there, done that. I’m still not old enough to do memoirs.”
And I kept saying, “I don’t know that I’ve got the impetus and the desire to do it right now,” and during one of these conversations my wife Kathryn said, “Why don’t you do a history book for children?” And that gave me pause. She said, “Yeah, it’s a demographic nobody would ever think that you’d write about, and you care about it. You talk about it all the time. You talk about how education’s so screwed up and you talk about how important it is for people to learn the truth of America that are not learning it,” and that lit a fire. It honestly did, because it was something new. It was something I hadn’t done.
The book that Vince was talking about, no question I will do that book someday, but there was nothing really new in it. It was just a repackaging and representation of things I’ve already said. And when I would tell him that, he’d say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you say so much, not everybody could possibly have heard everything you said. Do you realize how much brilliance of yours is just lying there on your website unread?” I said, “Maybe not unread, but it’s hard to remember it all.” “Yeah, that’s right. You’ve got to!” So he kept pushing and pushing. So I probably will do that.
But the concept of a children’s book? That was exciting ’cause it was new. It was something I hadn’t done before. I didn’t know if I could do it. It had all the elements of a challenge, and that’s all it took. So we got busy doing this, and I found out I wasn’t gonna be able to do it myself ’cause we had to have illustrations and I had to have somebody fact check the history, and I needed assistance in writing dialogue for people anywhere from 10 to 13 years old, because I don’t have kids and therefore I’m not around people that age very long.
So we put together the absolute best team to do this, and the first book was Rush Revere and the Pilgrims. And the whole point of the series was to start at the very outset of the idea of America, which is a free people electing leaders whose purpose is to protect and ensure the freedoms of the people of the country, not the other way around. Not a monarchy, not a dictatorship — even a benevolent dictatorship. This was going to be a representative republic, and it was historic.
Nothing had ever been done like it in America before, and that had been lost — the uniqueness, the greatness, the genuine specialness that is the United States. People who are born here and grow up, it’s just what is — and if they’re not taught how hard it was, if they’re not taught how great the founders were — if they’re not taught the obstacles, the adversity — if they’re not taught the genuine miracle that had to take place for this nation to form, then they’re not gonna regard it as anything special. And they’re gonna be very open to what they are being taught, and that is how America’s flawed and how America is imperfect.
And that is what American history has largely become, how America’s unjust, how America is immoral from the days of its finding, how America is a nation of bigots and extremists and racists. And it’s always ticked me off. So the idea of having a way of getting involved in a project to counter that? Now, that was exciting, and it was challenging. So Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims got it started and now we’re up at number five, Rush Revere and the Presidency. And I’ll tell you, folks, it is heartwarming.
We’ve got the Rush Revere website, the Rush Revere Facebook page, which we keep separate from RushLimbaugh.com. We sometimes post in both places, but the operations are separate and apart. We get pictures and we get emails from families and children reading these books and we get stories from people who tell us their kids never liked history, never liked reading, and now they can’t get enough. They want their parents to read the books to ’em constantly; they can’t wait for the next one to come out. I can’t tell you what a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction it is.
And then when you see the pictures — and I could read to you countless numbers of emails from readers all day long. Let me just pick one last night. It’s from Melissa. “We started reading Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims again last night and my young children love it. My nine-year-old son was just found reading it to his younger siblings in my bed while they were supposed to be getting ready for a day of school. It’s a good thing they’re homeschooled. I can’t wait to expand our Rush Revere library. Thank you for making history fun.
“My kids hate to put your books down. They can’t get enough of Liberty’s antics. Never before has history held their attention.” This is exactly what we were aiming for, and to have this kind of affirmation day in and day out is so rewarding, I can’t describe it. “History…” Back to the email. “History is especially important to our family. As a military family, we definitely believe the old saying that those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it. Seeing the world today and watching the riots taking place, I often wonder if these children understand history or civics at all.
The horse’s name is Liberty, and Liberty can only time travel back, not forward, and can… Well, Liberty can return to present day but can only time travel back in history and only do American history. And that’s the vehicle that we use to teach the history. We actually take the readers on time-travel trips back to the events that we are attempting to teach so that the reader is actually immersed in the event and the people, the founders involved actually converse with the students that time travel back with Revere and Liberty as they converse with themselves.
It’s fun to try to make sure the founders don’t know that we’re time traveling back, keep that all straight, too. But it’s a wonderful vehicle that allows us to teach history in a way that’s not just a recitation and not just with pictures. But it actually takes the reader, the young reader back and involves them in it, and that’s how they remember it, and that’s how it makes an impression. Book five just came out on the 24th of November. It’s Rush Revere and the Presidency.
It’s about the presidency of George Washington. One of the students at Manchester Middle wants to be school president but for all the wrong reasons. Wants fame, wants to be cool, wants to be hip, wants the students at the school to think he’s cool and all that. Rush Revere realizes it’s the entirely wrong reason to want to be president of anything, and suggests we time travel back and talk to George Washington about his presidency.
And that’s how we explain the presidency to young people and how we explain to them it came to be and why it’s not a kingship or monarchy and so forth. It’s really a fun thing to do, and I just… We… I haven’t touted this most recent book much lately ’cause there’s been so much going on but I wanted to mention it again because so much feeding is coming in. It’s Rush Revere and the Presidency, and thanks to all of you who are making it once again a best-seller.
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RUSH: By the way, the picture on the email I just described with the three kids in mom’s bed, reading Rush Revere, the eldest child reading? We posted the picture at Facebook.com/RushRevere. Folks there are five books. As I say, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims got it all started. This one is Rush Revere and the Presidency. One of the great things is that every time there’s a new book all of the others in the series get fresh attention and fresh sales. I’ll tell you, folks, we really, really believe in this now because of actual experience, the impact that they are having.
And I don’t spend a lot of time talking about this, as I mentioned, because of so many other things in the news out there to talk about. But I wanted to take a moment today because so many people worked so hard on this and we are so proud of it, and we believe in the mission. There is a mission here, which is to teach the truth of the absolute unique greatness that is the United States. And there is no better time than now, when we have a transition in power and it looks like we’re back in what used to be the direction this country was always on, and that was growth, expansion, and greatness. We have a president who actually wants to make that happen. These books just dovetail tremendously with that.
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RUSH: Ron in Osceola, Indiana. Great to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, it’s such an honor to speak with you today. I’m a longtime listener. I go back to almost the beginning of your show, and I’m a first-time caller. The reason I wanted to call you is to talk about your book series. We just purchased your first book for our eight-year-old grandson, the Brave Pilgrims book, but I was curious as to if you had any suggestions as to which book we should start with our grandchildren and how we should proceed.
RUSH: That’s it. The first one in the series is the one to start with, because the Pilgrims and their story sets the stage for what was to become the United States a couple hundred years later. It’s profound. The Pilgrims arrive here in the 1600s. It’s stunning who they were, why they came, what drove them to get on a tiny little ship and go someplace nobody knew anything about. It is one of the most compelling stories, it’s mistaught.
The whole story of the Pilgrims is taught as a Thanksgiving story, the Indians saving them from themselves ’cause they were incompetent and foolish and didn’t know what they were doing, and nothing could be further from the truth. That book — did you say you have that book?
CALLER: Yes, I have that book.
RUSH: I’m gonna send you the other four.
CALLER: Wow.
CALLER: Well, thank you so much.
RUSH: Right. Now, also, every caller the past three weeks has been offered a brand-new iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus. Would you like one? If so, which one?
CALLER: Absolutely. 7 Plus.
RUSH: All right. What’s your carrier?
CALLER: AT&T.
RUSH: Pick your color.
CALLER: What colors do you have? It’d be for my wife ’cause I have a 6 Plus that I’m calling you on.
RUSH: Let me send her a rose gold iPhone 7 Plus. Hang on. We’ll get the address. It will be 256 gigabytes. It’ll work on AT&T out of the box, you’ll have to take it to get your number transferred from hers to the new one. Save the box when you take it to the store, if that’s what you do, tell ’em it was a gift and then —
CALLER: Wow.
RUSH: — they’ll set you right up.
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