It is no secret that one of my goals in life is to get my son to read.  He’s twenty-three now.  I’ve been at this task a long time, but I won’t give up.

  My daughters were easy to turn into readers.  I pointed them toward Romance and they’ve never looked back.  My belief is that if you hook a person on what he likes to read, he’ll go on to read everything.  Worked on the girls. 

   Hasn’t worked on my son.

   Enter AMERICAN SHAOLIN by Matthew Polly.  Polly gave up his last year of Princeton in the early ’90’s to study kung fu at the Shaolin Temple in China.  He wanted to change himself–become more brave, more fit, and more spiritual.  What follows is a funny, off beat tale of living amongst monks, the Chinese, and coming of age as a man. 

   All I had to do was show Andrew the pictures in the book of the legendary “Iron Crotch” Monk Dong (I am not making that up!) in action.

“Hmmm . . . let me see that book, Mom,” Andrew said.

 ”Not yet,” I answered.  “I’m reading it.”  Which was true.  It’s also true that AMERICAN SHAOLIN is too good a read to give over to my son’s college dorm room before I’ve had a chance to savor each word. 

 Whadda great read!  I love cultural insight, politics, and history.  AMERICAN SHAOLIN has it all, not to mention an unforgettable cast of monks.  Polly gives China a human face, us an appreciation for a society caught between the old and new, and me an understanding why all those martial arts movies are so popular.  In fact, I think I’m going to rent a Jet Li . . . and maybe Andrew and I will watch it together.

AMERICAN SHAOLIN by Matthew Polly  ISBN  978-1-592-403370-0