Maynard and the Bullies

His dad is away a lot in the Army, so Maynard Little III, a schoolboy inventor with a patent, dreams of making a robot Thinking Machine to protect him from neighborhood bullies. Dad says to stand up to them. Mom says treat them as you want to be treated. ...So, should he obey Mom, or obey Dad? His efforts to deal with the kids, his parents, his Cherokee history, and the problems of turning his dream into reality, lead him to discover that reality is a lot harder than he thinks, and that Mom and Dad have already given him most of the important things he needs. AFTERWORD Growing up, Maynard liked to ask questions, solve problems, and build inventions. He also had troubles, and wrote about them plus other things for a while. The result was a handwritten diary hidden for decades in a mis-filed folder. Maynard Little III became a soldier, not a warrior. After leaving the Army he became Dr. Maynard Little III, an inventor who gathered a small team of feisty people to build TM2, his first robot Thinking Machine. But that’s another story. Recently, one of his robot TMs found the old childhood diary during a house-cleaning frenzy. TV news reporter Sylvia Robinson persuaded Doctor Little to turn it into this book. He hired a writer and an illustrator. Ms. Robinson added photos and the maps.