Book Reviews
Missing!
Stranger
Abduction:
Teaching
Your
Child
How
to
Escape
by
Robert
Stuber
Tips
reinforced
with
stories
offering
methods
of
escaping
from
an
abduction
"Child stalking and abduction are often in the local news these days, so it is timely that a new book just published by Heidelberg Graphics in Chico focuses on what the child can do in the crucial minutes after a stranger has tried to abduct her or him.
"It is a matter rarely discussed, but most of us assume the child to be almost totally at the mercy of the adult stranger.
"But former Bay Area police officer Robert Stuber of Paradise challenges that notion in Missing! Stranger Abduction: Teaching Your Child How to Escape ($6.95 in paper). ...
"... The crucial premise underlying all of Stuber's recommendations is 'the first 10 minutes after an abduction are the most critical. Thereafter the odds of ever finding the child (dead or alive) begin to drop off dramatically.' For Stuber this means the child must act quickly and decisively, and that everything parents teach their children about being polite and listening to adults must be tossed out. If an abducted child is locked in the trunk of a car, says Stuber, the child ought to kick and pull the wires to the brake lights in hopes a passing officer will notice something amiss. If the child is taken into a store, he or she should be taught to make a scene by pushing over merchandise. Parents tell their children not to talk to strangers, but in an abduction, strangers can be friends, potential life savers. If a child is locked in a house, he or she should be taught to use the light switch at night to spell out SOS in Morse Code. The child can fill a toilet with rags to cause an overflow and maybe distract the abductor. Children can be taught to make their nose bleed and use the blood to write messages. And if a molester has taken off the child's clothes, the child should be taught how to kick the man in the groin and then run, naked to safety. 'Get a passport for your child,' Stuber advises. 'That makes it difficult for someone else to get one for him or her.'
"Missing! is written in simple language, but it is harrowing to read straight through. And something else: I am suffised with a sadness just now that I cannot seem to escape." --Dan Barnett, "Biblio file," Chico Enterprise-Record
"There is a side to child abduction that no one is talking about: Teaching a child how to escape from an abductor.
"Author Robert Stuber turns the spotlight on the subject in his new book, Missing! Stranger Abduction: Teaching Your Child How to Escape, (Heidelberg Graphics, $6.95).
" 'We see on the news and in the media one aspect of it, which is the police and the FBI and the neighbors and everybody searching and that's what people equate with child abduction,' said Stuber, a resident of California and a former police officer.
" 'What we don't see is the part that we need to see, which is the real battle and that's what's going on between the abductor and the child. That basically is where the battle is going to be won or lost, and if the child has been instructed as to certain things he can do to aid in this, the chances of survival are much better.' ..." --Nicole LeWand, Daily Oklahoman
" 'On Wednesday evening Jason took out the garbage and was never heard from again. His decapitated body was found two days later in an empty field three blocks from his house.'
"So begins Stuber's new book, Missing! Stranger Abduction: Teaching Your Child How to Escape, from Heidelberg Graphics in Chico. ...
"... And his book certainly isn't traditional. One chapter begins with 'Mary,' the story of a nine-year-old abductee who was sexually abused by her captor. 'The man started to kiss her and as usual he put his tongue in her mouth,' it reads. ..." --James Vlahos, Paradise Post
"... Missing! Stranger Abduction: Teaching Your Child How to Escape, goes well beyond the conventional wisdom of avoiding kidnap. It teaches kids what to do after they're abducted: to resist aggressively and behave pro-actively to win escape. ...
"... Stuber's book has been endorsed by Marc Klaas, father of slain kidnap victim Polly Klaas." --Annie Nakao, San Francisco Examiner
Order Missing! Stranger Abduction: Teaching Your Child How to Escape by Robert Stuber