Mom & 12-Year-Old Son Tackle Reading Crisis with Humorous New Novel and Free Reluctant Reader Playbook

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NEW YORK, Oct. 2025 /PRNewswire/ — With two-thirds of parents saying screens are hurting kids’ attention spans and mental health, one mom decided to flip the script. Teaming up with her 12-year-old son, Melanie Vitalli co-authored Not Logan: How I Accidentally Became a YouTube Star—launching today alongside the Reluctant Reader Playbook, a free resource of research-backed strategies designed to help families turn screen time battles into book-driven wins.

The book grew out of Melanie Vitalli’s efforts with her son Hunter,

writing together under the pen name Melanie Hunter, after struggling to find a middle-grade book that spoke to him as a reluctant reader.

“We couldn’t find a book that grabbed my son’s attention. All he wanted was video games and YouTube,” said Vitalli. “So instead of fighting screens, we used them as a bridge back to books. Our goal was to create a story that kept kids laughing and turning the pages.”

In their story,

12-year-old Logan is an awkward kid who wears Velcro shoes and can trip over air – definitely not one of the coolest kids at school. But for this wannabe gaming YouTuber with just three subscribers (including his grandma), it’s this genuineness that causes him to go viral when a hilarious glitch happens during a livestream. Now swamped with fans, sponsorships, and merch, Logan has to figure out if he can handle megastar status without losing the offbeat genuineness that made him famous in the first place.

Written with short chapters, laugh-out-loud humor, and a voice that sounds like a real kid, it’s designed for the child who insists they “don’t read” but will devour something that feels relatable and modern.

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