Still Time For Summer Reading Books For Boys Who Are Cool Guys

You might be at the place in your house where you’ve run out of ideas to challenge the young readers in your family. I hear from a lot of parents that my action-adventure and mystery books provided a key for the breakthrough to their struggling or reluctant readers.

You can find over 50 pages of reviews here http://maxbookreviews.blogspot.com that may help you in selecting exactly the right title. Happy summer reading with my books for boys.

The Dillinger connections

This is by no means an endorsement of the outlaw, John Dillinger, nor the new film, Public Enemies, which was recently released. But I have a couple of connections to the Dillinger story that you may find interesting.

(Warsaw, Indiana newspaper - April 1934)

In this picture you’ll notice one of my action-adventures, Terror at Wolf Lake (out of print at the moment, but due for a second printing). The main character in the book, Eddy Thompson, is described this way:

“Eddy was known by his friends and his enemies for one thing. Eddy Cheated…and not just sometimes. He cheated on anything, anytime, anywhere.” Eddy lived in Crown Point, Indiana. The town is famous as the place where the FBI brought one of the worst gangsters in American history for trial. His name was John Dillinger. Eddy liked the idea that this criminal also grew up in Indiana.

“Best thing to ever come out of this state,” he liked to say. In fact, Dillinger was his hero.

This attitude ultimately changes as Eddy learns the difference between right and wrong.

I have a second connection to the Dillinger story because I grew up in the town of Warsaw, Indiana, located between Ft. Wayne and South Bend, on US 30. And Warsaw is also the county seat with the courthouse and jail. On the night of April 12, 1934, the police officer on duty was going door-to-door; rattling door handles to make sure they were locked.

Dillinger and his gang overpowered the officer, took him to the jail, and forced him to unlock the doors and then they knocked him out. The gang stole guns and bullet-proof vests from the small county jail in Warsaw that night.

Make no mistake; Dillinger was a very bad man. He and his gang were responsible for the deaths of many people. And I don’t glorify the man in any way in my book. He became public enemy # 1 by the FBI. Since this summer marks the 75th anniversary of Dillinger’s violent death in a Chicago alley, I wanted to make the connections to Terror at Wolf Lake, my hometown of Warsaw, Indiana, and and draw attention to the difference between right and wrong.

All of my action-adventures & mysteries deal with character issues, especially for tween boys.

Find reviews at

http://maxbookreviews.blogspot.com/2005/11/latest-book-reviews-for-max-elliot.html

Watch this blog for information when Terror at Wolf Lake is available again.

Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That's Leaving Them Behind

Here's a heads up on a new book that will interest you. The following is taken from Amazon.com.

Book Description

The signs and statistics are undeniable: boys are falling behind in school. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the biggest culprits are not video games, pop culture, or female-dominated schools biased toward girls. The real problem is that boys have been thrust into a bewildering new school environment that demands high-level reading and writing skills long before they are capable of handling them.

Lacking the ability to compete, boys fall farther and farther behind. Eventually, the problem gets pushed into college, where close to 60% of the graduates are women. In a time when even cops, construction foremen, and machine operators need post-high school degrees, that’s a problem.Why Boys Fail takes a hard look at how this ominous reality came to be, how it has worsened in recent years, and why attempts to resolve it often devolve into finger-pointing and polarizing politics.

But the book also shares some good news. Amidst the alarming proof of failure among boys—around the world—there are also inspiring case studies of schools where something is going right. Each has come up with realistic ways to make sure that every student—male and female—has the tools to succeed in school and later in life. Educators and parents alike will take heart in these promising developments, and heed the book’s call to action—not only to demand solutions but also to help create them for their own students and children.

Cool Guys Read

My goal with this blog is to point out that reading is cool. Not only that, I especially want guys to understand that it's the cool guys who read.

This is a picture from about 100 years ago. I’m standing with my brothers in front of just one of the bookcases in my father’s study. He wrote over 70 books, but I didn’t think it was cool to read back then, so I didn't. I’m the one on the left. But my oldest brother, Donn – the guy on the right – read like a mad man.

We always teased him about that, and taunted him for not going outside with the rest of us to play football, basketball, play cops & robbers, or any number of things.

“No,” he’d say, “I’d rather read.”

What a loser I thought back then. But I was wrong. See, life is a funny thing sometimes. The guys we thought were the coolest when we were kids, well, they turned out not to go very far in life. And the guys we thought of as the geeks, now there are the ones who became successful.

How do you think men become doctors, professors, scientist, attorneys, and more? They read a lot.

So don't listen to other people who call you names or tease you about reading. My brother Donn is one of the most well informed people I know, and he got that way from reading…a LOT.

Remember, Readers are the leaders others follow.

Max Elliot Anderson

PS. I’d be interested in guys you know about, it might even be you, who are cool because they're guys who read.