Thomas M. Burby

Having taught 12 and 13 year olds reading and writing for twenty-five years, he has a sixth sense about what young readers are seeking when they pick up a book to read. Young people are constantly following other people's rules and are under the protective shadow of their parents at all times. They never know a world where their parents do not rule and where the eyes of their peers are not judging them. If somehow a young person should wake up to an empty world, they would no longer be bound by rules and peer pressure. This book explores this idea and how someone might actually survive it. Burby's love of nature, dirt bikes, paintball, dogs, mythology and Benjamin Franklin all figure into his writing. Burby writes, "A book should be like a clubhouse to a child, a place to go and linger, away from your parents, family and friends and just chill. A good book is a cave that only you can enter and explore, with nothing but the flashlight of your imagination to light the way. Who knows if you'll ever find your way out again?" Born and raised in Caribou, Maine, Burby went to college at the University of Maine at Orono where he graduated with a Bachelors degree in English. He went on to receive is Masters of Science in Education from the University of New England and has been published in the Journal of Maine Education. The head judge of the Maine Middle School Science Fair for many years, Burby has spent the majority of his professional life in the classroom teaching students about Edgar Allan Poe, Greek and Roman Mythology, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction, poetry and how to hear your inner voice if you would only stop talking, for goodness sake.