Genre
Services Offered
Indie self-publishing coaching
Most Recent Book Title
Adventures of the Landfill Gang
Book Description
A Coming-of-Age Book for Grade School Boys and Adults
Landfill Gang members—Andy, Buddy, JD, and Jimmy—are audacious boys who find adventure in every corner of a South St. Louis landfill. Jimmy narrates the tales. Andy, a year older and the band’s Tom Sawyer, is the undisputed leader, while JD, the group’s cynic, vies for Andy’s top-dog status. Buddy is in every bully’s crosshair and a reluctant participant in gang activities. The tales recount Jimmy’s personal struggle to overcome undiagnosed dyslexia, build self-confidence, and shred shyness. The twenty-one loosely linked chapters recount the boy’s lighthearted capers lifted randomly from their grade school years.
The gang learns the three R’s at St. Stephen’s Catholic school. However, life’s more challenging lessons come from their adventures in the dump and treks through all-white ethnic neighborhoods in the post-war years. Street schooling and escapades in the 20-acre dump tutor values like loyalty, friendship, self-respect, facing down bullies, and overcoming physical roadblocks.
The gang’s beliefs, crude practices, and off-color exchanges are prevalent among youths from lunch pail job families. Like the boys in Stephen King’s inspired movie, Stand By Me, the band bends the rules and stretches the truth when an escapade demands, but with no intent to harm or offend—just boys doing what boys do.
Over the Top Adventures Triggered From Disney Matinee Movies.
Join the gang as they hunt with BB guns and slingshots, stand up to bullies, build forts and treehouses, face danger, and put themselves in harm’s way. The stories reflect how inquisitive minds seek adventure but find trouble.
Saturday matinee movies triggered weeklong exploits. Examples of cinema inspired escapades:
▪ The Christmas Story puts Daisy BB guns on gang members’ shoulders for hunts in the dump.
▪ Robin Hood inspires a band that uses bows and arrows to hunt pretend enemies in the dump’s Sherwood Forest.
▪ The Crimson Pirate prompts the construction of a model hot-air balloon, cannons that shoot marbles, and a dangerous explosive.
Jimmy’s Dyslexia Becomes His Superpower
Emotional turmoil forces kids to reexamine their values, priorities, and friendships. Such is the case for the Landfill Gang, who experience coming-of-age transformations. However, Jimmy’s undiagnosed dyslexia caged in his small body with depressed self-confidence makes his hurdle for change higher than others in the gang. Can he compensate for his unique way of thinking and succeed in grade school? Can his “outside the box” problem-solving become his superpower?
Turn Back Time
Let the Adventures of the Landfill Gang initiate you into their band and resurrect memories from your adolescent years. Walk with them down memory lane in a distant era in America.
Landfill Gang members—Andy, Buddy, JD, and Jimmy—are audacious boys who find adventure in every corner of a South St. Louis landfill. Jimmy narrates the tales. Andy, a year older and the band’s Tom Sawyer, is the undisputed leader, while JD, the group’s cynic, vies for Andy’s top-dog status. Buddy is in every bully’s crosshair and a reluctant participant in gang activities. The tales recount Jimmy’s personal struggle to overcome undiagnosed dyslexia, build self-confidence, and shred shyness. The twenty-one loosely linked chapters recount the boy’s lighthearted capers lifted randomly from their grade school years.
The gang learns the three R’s at St. Stephen’s Catholic school. However, life’s more challenging lessons come from their adventures in the dump and treks through all-white ethnic neighborhoods in the post-war years. Street schooling and escapades in the 20-acre dump tutor values like loyalty, friendship, self-respect, facing down bullies, and overcoming physical roadblocks.
The gang’s beliefs, crude practices, and off-color exchanges are prevalent among youths from lunch pail job families. Like the boys in Stephen King’s inspired movie, Stand By Me, the band bends the rules and stretches the truth when an escapade demands, but with no intent to harm or offend—just boys doing what boys do.
Over the Top Adventures Triggered From Disney Matinee Movies.
Join the gang as they hunt with BB guns and slingshots, stand up to bullies, build forts and treehouses, face danger, and put themselves in harm’s way. The stories reflect how inquisitive minds seek adventure but find trouble.
Saturday matinee movies triggered weeklong exploits. Examples of cinema inspired escapades:
▪ The Christmas Story puts Daisy BB guns on gang members’ shoulders for hunts in the dump.
▪ Robin Hood inspires a band that uses bows and arrows to hunt pretend enemies in the dump’s Sherwood Forest.
▪ The Crimson Pirate prompts the construction of a model hot-air balloon, cannons that shoot marbles, and a dangerous explosive.
Jimmy’s Dyslexia Becomes His Superpower
Emotional turmoil forces kids to reexamine their values, priorities, and friendships. Such is the case for the Landfill Gang, who experience coming-of-age transformations. However, Jimmy’s undiagnosed dyslexia caged in his small body with depressed self-confidence makes his hurdle for change higher than others in the gang. Can he compensate for his unique way of thinking and succeed in grade school? Can his “outside the box” problem-solving become his superpower?
Turn Back Time
Let the Adventures of the Landfill Gang initiate you into their band and resurrect memories from your adolescent years. Walk with them down memory lane in a distant era in America.
Additional Book Titles
Industrial Electronics
Introduction to Robotics in CIM Systems
Programmable Logic Controllers
Industrial Motor Controllers
Computer Integrated Manufacturing
Introduction to Robotics in CIM Systems
Programmable Logic Controllers
Industrial Motor Controllers
Computer Integrated Manufacturing
Website #1
Facebook
Twitter
Location (city/state/country)
Greer, SC, USA
Author bio
J.A. (Jim) Rehg is a self-publishing coach, and owner of Cange Creek Press, LLC, specializing in self-publishing information and document preparation. My degree in Electrical Engineering led to a position in instrumentation system design in the Gemini space program and on the F-4 fighter jet while working at McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in St. Louis. After moving into college teaching, I organized and managed industrial automation training centers and consulted on the design of automated manufacturing systems. I taught technical college and university students for 40 years as an engineering educator before retiring from Penn State University as an Associate Professor of Engineering.
I received recognition for excellence in teaching at the college, state, and national levels during my academic career. My two co-authors, Glenn Sartori and Henry Kraebber, and I authored six university-level textbooks for Pearson Education UK—one’s in its 5th edition, two were translated into Chinese and one into Japanese. Two texts were the most widely adopted college textbooks for courses in manufacturing automation.
Since retiring from teaching, my writing focus has changed to fiction and memoir. I’m an active member of the South Carolina Writers Association and the Olli writers critique groups. The first book in my two-book coming-of-age memoir series is in beta review. The series, titled The Adventures of the Landfill Gang, loosely links the escapades of four boy’s living near a dump in Midwest America in the post-World War II years. The first book carries the reader back to life and growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s. The second in the series continues with more youthful adventures.
I received recognition for excellence in teaching at the college, state, and national levels during my academic career. My two co-authors, Glenn Sartori and Henry Kraebber, and I authored six university-level textbooks for Pearson Education UK—one’s in its 5th edition, two were translated into Chinese and one into Japanese. Two texts were the most widely adopted college textbooks for courses in manufacturing automation.
Since retiring from teaching, my writing focus has changed to fiction and memoir. I’m an active member of the South Carolina Writers Association and the Olli writers critique groups. The first book in my two-book coming-of-age memoir series is in beta review. The series, titled The Adventures of the Landfill Gang, loosely links the escapades of four boy’s living near a dump in Midwest America in the post-World War II years. The first book carries the reader back to life and growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s. The second in the series continues with more youthful adventures.
Professional Speaker Topics
How to optimize an Amazon book listing
How to find and write your life's story
Using Scrivener writing software
How to find and write your life's story
Using Scrivener writing software
Favorite Quote or Personal Motto
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and the lightening bug—Mark Twain, 1888 letter
