Guest Author - Paula Petrie

The Dead Guy Interviews, conversations with 45 of the most accomplished, notorious, and of course deceased personalities in history.

If your ‘tweens like interesting facts, and historical info, “The Dead Guy Interviews,” is a good choice. Written in ‘tween lingo, Michael Stusser, will introduce your kids to several known, (or heard of) historical figures, such as: Alexander the Great, Crazy Horse, Buddha, Leonardo de Vinci, and Abraham Lincoln, for starters.

Stusser offers an overview of the life and accomplishments, of Ludwig von Beethoven, for example, then he conducts an imaginary, informative, and fun interview. Within the interview Stusser attempts to answer questions that a child, or anyone, may come up with while learning about the “dead guy.”

Though initially skeptical, I really enjoyed Stusser’s style. Stusser clarified for his reading audience, the purpose of the Eightfold Path in Buddha‘s teachings, through an interview with the enlightened one. In this way, Stusser was able to remove some of the oddness or mystery. This approach also helps the reader see these “famous dead guys,” as more human. My fourteen year old son really enjoyed this book.

The author, Michael Stusser‘s column, “Interview with a Dead Guy” appears in mental floss magazine. His Accidental Parent column in Parent Map magazine recently won the prestigious Gold Award from the Parenting Publication of America. Stusser has also authored several board games including, The Doonesbury Game (with Garry Trudeau), Hear Me Out and Earth Alert.

The list of dead guys interviewed for the book, includes: Alexander the Great, Crazy Horse, Buddha, Leonardo de Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, Michelangelo, Julius Caesar, Caligula, Catherine the Great, Winston Churchill, Cleopatra, Confucius, Salvador Dali, Albert Einstein, Henry V111, J. Edgar Hoover, Harry Houdini, Joan of Arc, Frida Kahlo, Genghis Khan, Nostradamus, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Mae West, Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Coco Chanel, Charles Darwin, Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Karl Marx, Montezuma, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Benito Mussolini, Sun Tzu, Nikola Tesla, Vincent van Gogh, Mao Zedong.