Guys Read
Page 13
Of course, we weren’t on this little creek just for the scenery. We wanted to catch fish, but fishing that water required commando-style casting tactics. I took two paddle strokes, grabbed the rod, and flicked a spinner into undercut banks, then into the deep water on the far side of sandbars, and then smack-dab between big, gray cypress trunks. Backhand, forehand, underhand—most times there was only time for a cast or two before I had to grab a paddle. And most times I was well rewarded. I made a cast: a redbreast sunfish. Another cast: another redbreast. Next a small bass with a large attitude smacked a spinner so hard that lure and fish came out of the water together. He tail-walked halfway to the boat. Just downstream Sam’s rod bent over with a two-pound chain pickerel—what locals call a jack. It’s essentially a Southern-grown version of a northern pike, small but with a similarly scaled wallop—and teeth.
The fish are willing, but there’s a price to be paid on small streams—wading in dank muck, sharing a fifteen-foot-wide body of water with spiders beyond counting and four-foot-long snakes. One time I felt something crawling up my thigh and glanced down at three arachnids of varying species and ranging in diameter from dime-size to I’m-trying-not-to-think-about-it. I smashed the nastiest-looking spider with my elbow in the same movement I use to flick another like a backhanded cast.
Paddle these little creeks and you have to be willing to run like a fullback straight into the nasty stuff. Turning one corner in the creek, we saw that a giant oak tree had fallen across the river, its monstrous crown wedged into the creek bank.
We looked for a way around, or through, the blockage.
“What do you think?” Sam asked. “Far right, maybe?” But he’d already made up his mind, for I could hear him in the stern of the canoe shoving gear out of the way. “Looks like a little hole beside that broken limb,” he said. “You ready?”
I grinned and nodded, tucked the rod tips under the gunwales, folded my seat down, and turned my hat backward. “Full speed ahead,” I hollered as we dug the paddles hard. Ten seconds later we crashed into the treetop like a train off its tracks. A jagged limb ripped my shirt, drawing blood. A half dozen spiders rained down my back, their webs a wet slime across my sweaty face. A handful of turtles and at least one snake hit the water. Then the canoe suddenly screeched to a halt, held tight in the crotch of a tree.
“Snap, crackle, pop,” Sam hooted. “This is my kind of canoeing! Hey, you use the machete. I’ve got a bow saw around here, somewhere. That wasn’t bad at all, was it?”
Not bad at all. At times we paddled for a half hour or more with our feet in the boat. Other times we were in and out time after time in a twenty-minute stretch, hauling the canoe over or around moss-slicked logs, squirming hand-over-hand spelunker-style under poison-ivy-meshed trunks, and slashing our way through treetops by means of various edged weapons.
But man, the fishing! When we heard a truck rumble across a bridge, we knew we were close to the takeout. We tallied up the score: In seven miles of stream, we’d been forced to haul the canoe over logjams and blowdowns twenty times. We’d broken one rod in a crash-dive through a treetop, and I must have smashed at least thirty spiders into my arms, legs, belly, and noggin. We’d not seen a human footprint or a piece of trash. Along the way we’d landed 175 redbreast sunfish, fifteen largemouth bass, a dozen bluegill, three jacks, and a pair of suckers. And I would be home in time for supper.
Maybe that crooked little close-to-home river wasn’t as big and wild as Alaska’s Kipchuk or Labrador’s Kanairiktok. But the memories were just as large. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of canoeing wild waters, it’s this: Every bend in every river is a door to a stretch of brand-new water that you’re paddling for the very first time. It’s hard to beat that kind of adventure.
It’s true: Guys Read true stories. And you just proved it. (Unless you just opened the book to this page and started reading. In which case, we feel bad for you because you missed some pretty awesome stuff.)
Now what?
Now we keep going—Guys Read keeps working to find good stuff for you to read, you read it and pass it along to other guys. Here’s how we can do it:
For more than ten years, Guys Read has been at www.guysread.com, collecting recommendations of what guys really want to read. We have gathered recommendations of thousands of great funny books, scary books, action books, illustrated books, information books, wordless books, sci-fi books, mystery books, and you-name-it books.
So what’s your part of the job? Simple: try out some of the suggestions at guysread.com, try some of the other stuff written by the authors in this book, and then let us know what you think. Tell us what you like to read. Tell us what you don’t like to read. The more you tell us, the more great book recommendations we can collect. It might even help us choose the writers for the next installment of Guys Read.
Thanks for reading.
And thanks for helping Guys Read.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JON SCIESZKA (editor) has been writing books for children ever since he took time off from his career as an elementary school teacher. He wanted to create funny books that kids would want to read. Once he got going, he never stopped. He is the author of numerous picture books, middle grade series, and even a memoir. From 2007–2010 he served as the first National Ambassador for Children’s Literature, appointed by the Library of Congress. Since 2004, Jon has been actively promoting his interest in getting boys to read through his Guys Read initiative and website. Born in Flint, Michigan, Jon now lives in Brooklyn with his family. Visit him online at www.jsworldwide.com and at www.guysread.com.
SELECTED TITLES
THE TRUE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS (Illustrated by Lane Smith)
THE STINKY CHEESE MAN AND OTHER FAIRLY STUPID TALES (Illustrated by Lane Smith)
The Time Warp Trio series, including SUMMER READING IS KILLING ME (Illustrated by Lane Smith)
The Spaceheadz series
CANDACE FLEMING (“A Jumbo Story”) found her calling as a storyteller very early in life. As a preschooler, she told her neighbors about Spot, her three-legged cat. Her kindergarten classmates heard about the ghost that lived in her attic. In first grade she told her teacher about her family’s trip to Paris, France. Everyone thought she was telling the truth. She wasn’t. She just liked telling a good story . . . and watching for the reaction. Today Candy likes telling true stories just as much as the ones she makes up. She has written many award-winning books, both fiction and nonfiction, usually incorporating what she loves most: stories, musical language, and history. Visit her online at www.candacefleming.com.
SELECTED TITLES
AMELIA LOST:
The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
THE GREAT AND ONLY BARNUM:
The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum
BEN FRANKLIN’S ALMANAC:
Being A True Account of the Good Gentleman’s Life
THE LINCOLNS:
A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary
BRIAN FLOCA (Illustrator) grew up in Temple, Texas. He credits his interest in gears and machinery at least partly to childhood visits to the family business, a soft-drink bottling plant. He has always loved drawing and cartooning, and created a daily comic strip in his college newspaper. He illustrated his first book, the graphic novel CITY OF LIGHT, CITY OF DARK by Avi, shortly after graduating. He enjoys illustrating books by other authors for the way they introduce him to new subjects, stories, and characters, and enjoys writing and illustrating his own books for the chance they give him to explore his own interests. His books have received three Sibert Honors. Visit him online at www.brianfloca.com.
SELECTED TITLES
LOCOMOTIVE
MOONSHOT: The Flight of Apollo 11
THE RACECAR ALPHABET
LIGHTSHIP
DOUGLAS FLORIAN (“Uni-verses”) grew up in New York City and started his career as a cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine. One day he ran across a collectio
n of children’s poems that inspired him to start writing poems and creating illustrations to go along with them, often using paper bags as his canvas. “Poetry,” he says, “is not black-and-white. It is more like the gray-and-purple area that connects all the things we live in.” He likes to write poems about stuff that especially interests him, like trees, lizards, frogs, cats, dogs, honeybees, pirates, baseballs, space, and dinosaurs. Visit him online at www.douglasflorianbooks.com.
SELECTED TITLES
POEM RUNS: Baseball Poems
UNBEELIEVABLES: Honeybee Poems and Paintings
COMETS, STARS, THE MOON, AND MARS: Space Poems and Paintings
DINOTHESAURUS: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings
NATHAN HALE (“Hugh Glass: Dead Man Crawling”) is not sure if he is related to the Revolutionary War spy Nathan Hale, but he knows he is not a direct descendant because the famous spy was killed before he had any children. Nathan did not start getting interested in comic books until he was in high school (because up until then he spent nearly all his time playing video games). When he did get into comics, he illustrated the Eisner-nominated graphic novel Rapunzel’s Revenge. Besides his work as an illustrator, he has painted scientific murals for museums around the United States. He also collects LEGO sets and runs marathons—seven so far (marathons, not LEGO sets). Visit him online at www.spacestationnathan.com.
SELECTED TITLES
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales series, including TREATIES, TRENCHES, MUD, AND BLOOD, and DONNER DINNER PARTY
THANHHA LAI (“A Pack of Brothers”) was born in Vietnam in 1965 (The Year of the Snake), the youngest of nine children. Life was good—she went to school, ate lots of snacks, and was “top dog” in her class. When the war ended on April 30, 1975, she and her family scrambled onto a navy ship and ended up in Montgomery, Alabama. It took Thanhha and her family about ten years to get used to life in the United States. By then they lived in Texas, where Thanhha studied journalism in college. She worked as a newspaper reporter and then began to write fiction. Her novel in verse INSIDE OUT & BACK AGAIN won the National Book Award and was a Newbery Honor Book. She lives north of New York City.
SELECTED TITLE
INSIDE OUT & BACK AGAIN
SY MONTGOMERY (“Tarantula Heaven”) has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire, has been bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica, has worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba, and has handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana in the course of researching her books. She has also been deftly undressed by an orangutan in Borneo, has been hunted by a tiger in India, and has swum with piranhas, electric eels, and dolphins in the Amazon. An ardent conservationist, she is a board member of Restore: The North Woods and the Center for Tropical Conservation. Visit her online at www.symontgomery.com.
SELECTED TITLES
KAKAPO RESCUE: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot
THE TARANTULA SCIENTIST
THE SNAKE SCIENTIST
JIM MURPHY (“This Won’t Hurt a Bit: The Painfully True Story of Dental Care”) is a two-time Newbery Honor Book and Sibert Award–winning author. He also received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for significant contribution to young adult literature. Growing up, he didn’t care much about reading until a teacher named a book the students were absolutely forbidden to read. Jim rushed to read the forbidden book and then kept on reading—anything he could get his hands on. He was also a high school track star—and was a member of two national champion relay teams at the Penn Relays. Visit him online at www.jimmurphybooks.com.
SELECTED TITLES
THE GIANT AND HOW HE HUMBUGGED AMERICA
AN AMERICAN PLAGUE: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793
THE GREAT FIRE
BLIZZARD!
T. EDWARD NICKENS (“The River’s Run”) is editor-at-large for Field & Stream magazine and a contributing editor for Audubon magazine. He writes about outdoor sports, natural history, and conservation. He’s reported from the Arctic to Central America, on topics as varied as Cajun culture and jaguar conservation, winning more than two dozen national writing awards. He writes, produces, and hosts television and webisode features on locations across North America. You can find videos and more of his stories at www.fieldandstream.com.
SELECTED TITLE
THE TOTAL OUTDOORSMAN MANUAL: 374 Skills You Need
ELIZABETH PARTRIDGE (“Mojo, Moonshine, and the Blues”) was an acupuncturist for more than twenty years before becoming a full-time writer. She grew up in a family of photographers—including her grandmother Imogen Cunningham, and her godmother, Dorothea Lange. She is inspired by the artists she has been surrounded by her whole life and hopes the stories she writes about creative and amazing people are inspiring to her readers. She says, “I hope they will ignite the creative, brave, idealistic energy young adults have, and let them know: they too can make a difference in our crazy, turbulent world.” Visit her online at www.elizabethpartridge.com.
SELECTED TITLES
MARCHING FOR FREEDOM: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary
JOHN LENNON: All I Want Is the Truth
THIS LAND WAS MADE FOR YOU AND ME: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie
DOROTHEA LANGE: Grab a Hunk of Lightning
STEVE SHEINKIN (“Sahara Shipwreck”) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and lived in Mississippi and Colorado before settling in the suburbs north of New York City. As a kid, his favorite books were action stories and outdoor adventures, stuff like sea stories, searches for buried treasure, and sharks eating people. His all-time favorite book is Mutiny on the Bounty, a novel based on the true story of a famous mutiny aboard a British ship in the late 1700s. He also loves to read anything about baseball, and still has his baseball card collection, in case you want to do a little trading. He has received the Sibert Medal, the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, and a Newbery Honor. He was also a National Book Award finalist. Visit him online at www.stevesheinkin.com.
SELECTED TITLES
BOMB: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon
THE PORT CHICAGO 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight For Civil Rights
LINCOLN’S GRAVE ROBBERS
THE NOTORIOUS BENEDICT ARNOLD: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery
JAMES STURM (“A Cartoonist’s Course”) loves comics so much he helped start a cartooning school, The Center for Cartoon Studies, in White River Junction, Vermont. Many of James’s graphic novels are about American history, including SATCHEL PAIGE: Striking Out Jim Crow and JAMES STURM’S AMERICA: God, Gold, and Golems. Even UNSTABLE MOLECULES, the comic featuring his favorite childhood superheroes, the Fantastic Four, was about American history! James is also the cocreator of the popular Adventures in Cartooning series that offers inspiration and instruction for kids who want to make their own comics.
SELECTED TITLES
ADVENTURES IN CARTOONING: How to Turn Your Doodles into Comics
ADVENTURES IN CARTOONING: Characters in Action
MARKET DAY
BACK AD
ALSO AVAILABLE IN THE GUYS READ LIBRARY OF GREAT READING
VOLUME 1—GUYS READ: FUNNY BUSINESS
VOLUME 2—GUYS READ: THRILLER
VOLUME 3—GUYS READ: THE SPORTS PAGES
VOLUME 4—GUYS READ: OTHER WORLDS
CREDITS
Cover art © 2014 by Brian Floca
Cover design by Joel Tippie
COPYRIGHT
Walden Pond Press is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Walden Pond Press and the skipping stone logo are trademarks and registered trademarks of Walden Media, LLC.
GUYS READ: TRUE STORIES
“Before We Begin . . .” copyright © 2014 by Jon Scieszka
“Sahara Shipwreck” copyright © 2014 by Steve Sheinkin
“Tarantula Heaven” copyright © 2014 by Sy Montgomery
“Hugh Glass: Dead Man Crawling” copyright © 2014 by Nathan Hale
&
nbsp; “A Jumbo Story” copyright © 2014 by Candace Fleming
“Uni-verses” copyright © 2014 by Douglas Florian
“This Won’t Hurt a Bit: The Painfully True Story of Dental Care” copyright © 2014 by Jim Murphy
“A Pack of Brothers” copyright © 2014 by Thanhha Lai
“Mojo, Moonshine, and the Blues” copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Partridge
“A Cartoonist’s Course” copyright © 2014 by James Sturm
“The River’s Run” copyright © 2014 by T. Edward Nickens
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Brian Floca
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