Professor Copper's Tactical Primer

A new book teaches your family tactical skills for self-defense and sports

Note to readers: When I posted my plea for help recently, I was stunned at the outpouring of kindness from so many here. As part of my post, I mentioned writing an article for each $100 someone gave, sort of a ghostwriter-type thing. I did not expect someone to contact me with an offer to pay me to cover an upcoming book release and a children’s book too! I’ve done my best, and I hope all of you will consider buying Nelson’s book and supporting his site.

If you look around today, many children's books are pure trash. Most are woke communist propaganda of one kind or another; some even try to sexualize children or brainwash them into mutilating their bodies. But Professor Copper's Tactical Primer is quite different as it teaches tactical skills to children and families for use in video games, nerf, paintball, and Airsoft.

Of course, such skills could also come in handy for you and your family during a civil disturbance, which I do not think is out of the question, given the GAE’s current circling of the bowl in terms of being the world’s reserve currency. So, while the book is written for kids, its lessons could apply to adults trapped in a self-defense situation where the local or state authorities have lost control of a city or state.

The book proceeds in a step-by-step fashion to introduce readers to the concepts of tactical conflicts. Don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with any of it; you don’t need to be an experienced tactician. The book introduces each topic gently and then builds on one concept to take you to the next. Even complete newbies like myself can learn real tactical skills with Professor Copper’s Tactical Primer.

Here’s a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the book so you know what to expect:

Introduction

Safety

Planning: Example Tactical Plan, Complications & Casualties, Packing

Key Skills: Shooting, Moving, and Communicating

Concepts: Concentration of Forces, Vehicles, Terrain, Urban Environments

Putting It Together: Movement to Contact, Assault, Static Defense, Ambushes, Leaving

After the Fight

The book is beautifully illustrated, with simple but attractively drawn and colored art. Here’s a look at some of the art in the book:

Nelson R. Elliot is the author of the book, and he also runs the Copper Jungle Site.

I had not heard of the site before connecting with him about this post, but I spent some time perusing it, and there is some excellent material there for kids that is not woke communist propaganda.

Here’s some background from the About page of the Copper Jungle Site:

Origins and Name

Copper Jungle, LLC was formed as a holding company for blogs and digital publications, including Marketsaurus - a marketing dictionary site. The idea behind the name was that the internet was a bit of a jungle and was largely made up of copper wires. The name was not originally intended for public use.

Books

When Nelson's wife was pregnant with their first baby, he started reading bedtime stories every night. While reading these stories to the baby, Nelson realized he had stories of his own that he wanted to share with his kids.

He started writing little fairy tales and sharing them with friends and family. The Chef and The Dragon was a favorite, so Nelson had it illustrated and self-published it, using the Copper Jungle name and LLC rather than forming a new entity just for physical publishing. 

The Chef and The Dragon sold well (for a self-published title), which was exciting. Excited to see a good response from readers and happy to have a creative outlet, Nelson continued to write and illustrate new stories, collaborating with lots of talented people to find new ways to bring stories and characters to life.

The Future

We've defined our mission as the production of family entertainment that supports our values of fun, family, freedom, and fortitude. We are growing and are always interested in supporting and collaborating with other people on similar missions.

If we can help or work together, please get in touch!

If Professor Copper's Tactical Primer interests you, I highly recommend that you take a minute and see all of the other books that Copper Jungle sells; you are bound to find an excellent family-oriented book that does not promote depravity, self-mutilation or other woke communist trash. They also sell games and clothes, so be sure to drop by the Copper Jungle site.

Here are some quick book links to get you around the site:

African American

Bopbot & Bowbot

Not-Too-Tall Tales

Chinese Books

Nelson also has a blog worth reading, which makes me wonder why he hasn’t started a substack here. I suspect it would be popular once he got rolling on it.

I asked Nelson a few questions about the book and his site; here are my questions and his answers (in italics):

1. How did you come up with the idea for Professor Copper's Tactical Primer? 

Like most of my books, it was a book I wanted my kids to have. Kids learn by playing and there’s no reason that kids can’t actually learn a little bit about fighting while they play. 

I’m not a tactical “expert” by any means. I’ve never been military or law enforcement, but I’ve read a few tactical books for hobbies like paintball. Most of them are pretty technical. I was aiming to create something more approachable. I got input from some friends who have had serious training to make sure I had the most important concepts right and then added some illustrations and storyline to keep kids engaged. 

The end result is hopefully something that provides a kid-friendly introduction to real skills that can be practiced in play – whether that’s as organized as paintball or as simple as a neighborhood round of cops & robbers. 

2. Is the book based on any personal experiences of your own? 

Indirectly. I grew up running around in the woods, playing army, shooting Nerf guns at each other, etc. I didn’t know anything about flanking or overwatch, but if I had, I think my friends and I all would have folded it into the games enthusiastically. 

3. What are the main lessons you want readers to take away from the book? 

I think the most important ideas are that combat is a team sport and it’s made up of techniques you can go practice. 

Young men and boys get plenty of exposure to combat in entertainment: movies, TV shows, video games, etc. It’s all mostly useless, though. The media depictions are full of invincible lone heroes who survive pointedly stupid tactics by plot armor alone. You almost can’t learn anything functional from Call of Duty games for example.  

If you care about raising strong, martial young men – which I do – giving them something more realistic, more communal, and more active to wrap their heads around will be an important start.  

4. What are your favorite parts of the book? 

My favorite parts are the bits where Tables, the robot, is doing something goofy. In the end, he’s still a valuable member of the team, though. I’ve embarrassed myself on the field plenty of times, but better to do it during play time than in a real fight. 

5. What parts of the book were the most challenging to write? 

The biggest challenge was figuring out what to cover. Tactics is huge field with a long history and potentially life-altering outcomes. Not being an expert, this was where I leaned the most on my friends to prioritize the most important bits. Once that was finished, the actual write-ups and illustration came pretty naturally. 

6. Which tactical sports are your favorites and why? 

I’m partial to paintball, since it’s the one I’ve played the most. It’s cheap and easy to try and loads of fun. Importantly, for learning tactics, it also hurts enough to get hit that people play “correctly,” as in they respond to incoming fire by trying to get out of the way. Laser tag is fast and easy, but no one is worried about getting hit, so they don’t react in ways that make sense for learning small unit tactics.  

I’ve had a few chances to play airsoft and mil-sim too, which are a lot of fun in their own ways, but they tend toward being more serious and more expensive to get into. 

Of course, since my wife won’t let me redecorate the living room in paintball splatters, we also play Nerf with the kids at home. 

7. Who did the delightful art in the book and how was it done? 

I did the artwork – I’m glad you like it! It was going to be an expensive challenge to find somebody who had the right style AND who knew enough about tactics to represent it correctly, so I muddled through. 

The art itself was done digitally in Affinity Publisher. They’d only recently released the program for tablets, but it was amazing to be able to move the text and art around all in the same place. 

8. Do you have plans to write a follow up? If so, what will the second book cover? 

No hard plans yet, but if this one does well, I’ve got some notes jotted down for a primer on politics or propaganda. 

9. What other books have you written and who are they for? 

I’ve written, illustrated, or otherwise produced about 20 other titles so far, all for kids. The best sellers are “The Chef and the Dragon,” a fairy-tale musing on the nature of true oppression, and “Garden Gruesome,” which was written just for fun, without any lesson in mind. I suppose if you look real hard into it, you can probably discern some of my underlying beliefs about the inevitability of death and the value of interacting with the world around us. 

10. Please share a list of your 5 favorite books by other authors that you would recommend for the readers of this article. 

I’ll stick with the kid’s books theme. Here are a few favorites from my household:

 “Beowulf” – James Rumford – A captivating retelling of the epic poem for stout-hearted young warriors. 

“The Skull” – Jon Klassen – A surprisingly deep and surprisingly sweet little fairy tale. It seems like a big book, but don’t let the size put you off, it’s shorter than it seems.  

“Some Bugs” – Angela DiTerlizzi & Brendan Wenzel – A very fun little garden romp that gives kids a reason to go outside and learn the names of things that aren’t corporate brands.  

“Where the Sidewalk Ends” – Shel Silverstein – Classic, quirky poetry. 

“Our Flag” – Little Golden Book, Carl Memling & Stephen Cook – A patriotic tour of American history and how it shows up in one of our most important symbols. 

It was a pleasant surprise for me to connect with Nelson and discover his site’s content and products. Yes, I’m glad to have been paid to write this post, but it’s more than that as I had more or less written off children’s books as it didn’t seem like anybody was writing anything decent these days.

But I was wrong about that, as Nelson has been quietly toiling away writing books that parents can share with their kids without worrying about them being indoctrinated into self-destructive, Marxist ideologies.

Professor Copper's Tactical Primer will be released in September 2023. You can preorder the book in Kindle or Print format from Amazon or buy it right on the Copper Jungle site.

You can also sign up to join Nelson's email list at the bottom of the Copper Jungle site. He sends no more than one email per month, so you will not be spammed, and he values your privacy.

While you wait for the book's release, you can also download some free coloring pages for your kids.