The Adventures of Stupid Boy and His Friend, Smart Boy: A Different Collection of Bedtime Stories

By Jubie Gon Gonx

"The Adventures Of Stupid Boy And His Friend, Smart Boy" is a bedtime storybook intended to be read to young people between the ages of 5 and 10. The book deals with the sometimes calamitous results of poor judgement, despite the counsel of a good friend. While the stories go to the brink of disaster, all turns out well and a lesson is learned. The stories are sprinkled with opportunities forfurther exploration ofa wide range of topics.

There are no talking animals or abstract fantasies in the adventures of Stupid Boy. Rather, the stories involve the everyday activities of two boys who live in the same neighborhood and enjoy the same things everyelementary school childenjoys. However,even at this age, life can present opportunities for trouble, and Stupid Boy always seems to find his way into more than his share. His friend, Smart Boy, tries to keep him safe and sound, but somepeople are very headstrong. As you will see, these two friendsare very much alikein appearance, but they are very different inthe way they exercise judgement,with both questionable circumstancesand questionable people.

Although these stories have done much to stimulate boys' interest in reading, it must be said that girls enjoy the stories just as much as boys. As we all know, girls like to laugh at some of thedubious things boys do and they love to see boys get into trouble!After all, girls would neverput themselvesin the same predicamentsas Stupid Boy....would they?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 14, 2007
• ISBN: 9781481766067

Jubie Gon Gonx

Jubie Gonx is a first time author who was motivated to publish his stories by their popularity with his children, their friends and eventually, the parents of his children's friends.  It seemed as though every evening, whether with his own children or with his children's guests at sleepovers, the first thing out of the their mouths would be: "Tell me a Stupid Boy story!"  The requests became so prevalent, Mr. Gonx finally told his wife: "If I had a brain in my head, I would publish some of those stories!"  She agreed, and the rest is history.

Book preview

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© 2007 Jubie Gonx. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/8/2007

ISBN: 978-1-4259-8404-5 (sc)

978-1-4817-6606-7 (e)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Contents

Forward

Chapter 1 Stupid Boy And The Storm Drain

Chapter 2 Stupid Boy And The Department Store

Chapter 3 Stupid Boy And The Secret Box

Chapter 4 Stupid Boy And The Dirty Dog

Chapter 5 Stupid Boy And The Nice Man

Chapter 6 Stupid Boy And The Gun In The Closet

Chapter 7 Stupid Boy And The Construction Equipment

This book is dedicated to my children, Rob, Jenna and Brad, as well as Brad’s friend, John Newcomb, whose collective and steadfast enthusiasm for these bedtime stories motivated me to publish this book.

Special thanks to my wife, Sally, for allowing family funds to be allocated to such a speculative endeavor.

FORWARD

Tell me another Stupid Boy story! Please? Many, many times I have heard that plea from my children and their friends over the years at bedtime, and just as many times I have admonished myself to write down those Stupid Boy stories and publish them. The thought of putting them down in writing just seemed to require time I didn’t have, yet the universal appeal of these tales was reinforced so loudly by so many kids, I knew there would be hordes of other children out there who would delight equally in hearing them. These bedtime stories are somewhat scary, somewhat predictable, tongue-in-cheek yarns that remind us all there are decisions to be made out there in this cold, cruel world, and the wrong ones can have somewhat severe penalties. Fortunately for Stupid Boy, the penalties are never so severe that he won’t be around to make a mistake on another day. Perhaps more importantly, Stupid Boy is very fortunate to have a friend, who I suspect is very much like our listeners, who tirelessly tries to keep him out of trouble, but Stupid Boy is just the kind of child who has to learn things the hard way.

These stories are meant to be read aloud by a person older than the listener. There are concepts and vocabulary words that are somewhat beyond the intended age group that are purposely interwoven throughout the book. Young people typically pick up on these new words and ideas right away and are quick to ask questions. After exploring them with an adult (and perhaps learning something new), they love showing off their new knowledge to their friends. As we all know, children are very curious and often smarter than we realize! These stories provide a great opportunity for sharing experience and advice, while having a rather edgy adventure from the safety of home.

This book makes no attempt to be politically correct. If it were, it would be very uninteresting to our young listeners; in fact, it would be downright boring! Kids are brutally honest and the very reason they love these Stupid Boy stories is that they are rather direct, and consequently, a connection is made right away. Now, there are some of us who have managed our way into adulthood who may have actually made some of the bad decisions described in these stories, and some of our children may have, also. Does this mean we are all irreversibly stupid? No, of course not. On the other hand, I would be willing to wager we wish a different decision had been made at the time, and we might have actually learned something in the process. As a result, we are now smart! So, the only lesson here is to try to make the right decision the first time and save ourselves a lot of trouble. Should we ever be calling anyone stupid, or any other bad name? Absolutely not! Such a thing would not be very nice; in fact, it would demonstrate very bad judgment, indeed, which is exactly the issue with the main character in this book; his poor reasoning gets him into a lot of trouble. As you will discover, this very problem is a large part of his appeal.

Trouble is exactly what Stupid Boy is all about, so without any further attempt to make a simple idea anything more than that, let us begin..…..

CHAPTER 1

Stupid Boy and the Storm Drain

Once upon a time, in a neighborhood very much like yours, there lived a boy by the name of Stupid Boy. Just down the street lived his very good friend, Smart Boy. Stupid Boy and Smart Boy were alike in many ways. They were the same height and the same age; they wore the same size clothes, and once in a while, people even said they looked like brothers. The