Ad Montes — Launch Announcement

To the Mountains!

Today, only 14% of thirteen-year-olds read for fun almost every day — down from 27% just over a decade ago. ¹ The average American child now spends just seven minutes a day playing outdoors, unstructured, unsupervised, and free — a fraction of what a generation ago took for granted. ²

Screens have filled the space where books and backyards used to be. We think children deserve better than that trade.

Introducing Mount Titano Ad Montes — “To the Mountains” — a new imprint built on a simple belief that the best books don't just entertain, they call us outside, upward, and onward. Ad Montes books are a source of real reading and learning pleasure — and an invitation into beautiful, exciting, and challenging adventures in nature.

Before he was a president, Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly boy who willed himself into a life of vigor, courage, and purpose — in the saddle, on the mountain, and in the arena of public life. The Rough Rider Reader gathers his own words on building strength of body, character, and citizenship, offered directly to the next generation of young readers (and all of us) ready to be challenged rather than entertained into passivity.

This is not a book that competes for our attention against a screen. It's a book that asks us to put the screen down, walk outside, and become something more.

Why It Matters Now

• Reading for pleasure among American children has fallen more than 40% over the last two decades. ³
• Outdoor play has dropped by roughly half in a single generation. ²
• MTM's new Ad Montes imprint exists to reverse both trends — one great book, and one great adventure, at a time.

THE ROUGH RIDER READER is coming soon.

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Sources

1. “Reading for Pleasure Is Plummeting in the U.S.” — University of Miami
2. “The Consequences of Children Spending Less Time Outdoors” — Michigan State University
3. “Why Are So Few Kids Reading for Pleasure?” — The 74